The  Nature  of  Woman 


In  preparation 
By  the  Same  Author 


(Type  Problems  Series) 

Woman : 

Her  life  and  development 

One  volume 


The  Sciences  of  Life 

In  separate  parts 


The  Nature  of  Woman 


By 

J.  Lionel  Tayler,  M.R.C.S.,  L.R.C.P. 

Member  of  the  Royal  Sanitary  Institute 

London  University  Extension  and  Tutorial  Lecturer 

on  Biology  and  Sociology 


N  EW  YORK. 

P  •  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 
31  West  Twenty-Third  Street 

»9»3 


T3 


Preface 

T  DO  not  expect  for  this  little  volume  a  large 
circulation,  but  I  venture  to  hope  that  those 
who  are  interested  in  womanhood  and  manhood 
will  find  in  its  pages  something  that  is  worthy  of 
consideration. 

I  have  written  this  book  with  the  deepest  and 
most  sincere  respect  for  womanly  character  and 
womanly  individuality  in  my  mind,  and  I  have 
tried  to  write  fairly  and  without  the  prejudice 
of  the  moment ;  is  it  too  much  to  ask  of  those 
who  are  my  readers  a  like  attitude  of  mind  ? 

It  has  been  my  object  to  make  a  complex  subject 
as  simple  as  a  complex  subject  can  be  made,  because 
I  hope  that  the  book  will  be  read  by  those  unused 
to  biological  thought.  It  would  have  been  easy 
to  adduce  many  more  facts  than  I  have  done  in 
support  of  my  views,  but  the  book  would  then  un- 
avoidably have  become  technical.  I  owe  this  apology 
to  fellow  biological  students,  and  on  another  occa- 
sion hope  to  make  good  these  defects.  The  author 
is,  of  course,  writing  in  his  private  capacity,  and 
claims  no  other  authority  than  that  which  the  facts 
of  the  subject  appear  to  warrant. 

J.  L.  T. 


257381 


Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface          .              .             .              .  .5 

I.     The  Woman's  Movement      .             .  p 

II.     The  Man's  Movement            .             .  •       42 

III.  The  Confusion  of  Thought  of  our  Times  .       47 

IV.  Our  Great-grandparents'  Days            .  .       62 
V.     Our  Great-grandparents  and  Ourselves  .       69 

VI.     The  Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance      .       87 
VII.     The  Next  Step  :  Economics  and  Biology       .      115 

VIII.     The  Home  and  Motherhood  as  Mental,  not 

Material,  Ideals      .  .  .  .124 

IX.     The  Sphere  of  Woman          .  .  .129 

X.     The  Nature  of  Man  and  Woman       .  138 

Supplementary  Chapter :  Some  Landmarks 
in  the  Subject,  with  the  Substance  of 
"Woman"  by  W.  C.  Roscoe,  reprinted 
from  "National  Review"  for  October,  1858  146 

References   .  .  .  .  .180 

Authors'  Index          .  .  .  .185 

Chronological  Index  .  .  .186 

Subject  Index  .  .  .  .186 

7 


The  Nature  of  Woman 


Chapter  I 

The  Woman's  Movement 
The  Past 

..."  Woman  is  not  undevelopt  man." — TENNYSON. 

I  ask  for  nothing  else  than  this — that  woman  should  recognise 
her  own  individuality,  and  that  man  should  recognise  it  also  in 
education,  vocation,  domestic  life,  and  national  representation. 

HPHE  study  of  sex  is  primarily  a  human  one, 
firstly  because  sex  has  in  all  forms  of  animal 
existence  only  a  physical  value,  lacking  both  the 
individual  and  the  social  importance  that  it  possesses 
in  man  ;  secondly — what  is  really  a  necessary  bio- 
logical corollary  to  the  first  reason — sex  specialisa- 
tion and  intensity  have  reached  a  higher  stage  in 
the  human  species  than  elsewhere. 

Woman's  position  can  only  be  said  to  have  been  a 
matter  for  serious  discussion  in  recent  times,  for 
although  primitive  man  and  woman  had  certain 
grievances  that  they  each  felt  against  the  other,  yet 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  these  were  settled  by 
individuals  as  individuals,  and  were  not  taken  up  by 
the  one  sex  as  a  sex  question  and  rejected  by  the 

9 


io  The  Nature  of  Woman 

other.  In  point  of  fact  woman  was  physically  in  too 
undifferentiated  a  condition  in  early  pre-civilised 
life,  and  she  was  mentally  and  physically  so  much 
more  man-like  that  it  is  probable  that  the  idea  of 
mental  differences  of  sex  had  hardly  occurred  to 
either  the  man  or  the  woman  at  this  time.  Woman 
was  regarded  by  man  and  regarded  herself  also  as 
simply  an  inferior  copy  of  himself. 

There  is  also  ample  evidence  to  prove  that, 
although  the  virago  such  as  Socrates'  Xantippe  has 
always,  except  possibly  among  the  Spartans,  excited 
derision  and  annoyance  in  the  mind  of  man,  there 
was  not  in  the  older  civilisations  any  tendency  for 
women  of  that  time  to  assert  themselves  as  women 
and  as  a  distinctive  sex  state  force.  The  feeling  of 
injustice,  of  limitation  felt  so  acutely  by  the  modern 
woman  manifested  itself  first  in  Renaissance  times, 
and  has  grown  and  intensified  slowly  in  the  fifteenth, 
sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries,  and  then 
rapidly  from  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century 
to  the  present  time.  It  is,  therefore,  pre-eminently 
a  modern  movement,  and  has  excited  greatest  feeling 
only  in  the  more  progressive  and  more  masculine 
countries  of  the  modern  civilised  world. 

I  do  not  wish  my  point  to  be  misunderstood.  No 
movement  is,  of  course,  ever  really  new.  Many 
primitive  races  are  not  free  from  some  discontent 
of  women.  The  Amazon  myth  and  certain  Greek 
and  Roman  examples  might  be  quoted,  but  these 
were  not  large  lasting  movements.  There  was,  of 
course,  also  besides  woman's  political  movement  a 
well-known  Renaissance  of  woman's  influence,  and 
this  was  perhaps  most  marked  in  the  two  feminine 


The  Woman's  Movement        n 

countries,  Italy  and  France.1  But  the  active  dis- 
content to  which  I  allude  appeared  first  in  England, 
and  spread  from  England  to  the  United  States  and 
Germany ;  and  although  it  is  true  that  other 
countries,  such  as  Hungary  and  France,  were  also 
affected,  yet  it  was  only  in  Germany  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  lands  that  definite  movements  were  es- 
tablished which  gave  origin  to  definite  schools  of 
thought.  For  some  reason  the  German  Empire  was 
and  is  hostile  to  woman's  development,  and  the 
Anglo-Saxon  countries  favourable,  and  as  both 
have  misunderstood  woman's  requirements,  it  may 
be  a  matter  of  some  interest  to  push  the  inquiry 
a  little  further.2 


The  Anglo-Saxon  Movement 

Mary  Astell,  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  published  (in  1696)  a  small  volume  on 
woman's  position,  which  is  probably  the  first  of  its 
kind  in  any  country  or  any  language.  It  passed 
through  several  editions,  so  that  it  may  fairly  be 
said  to  have  been  read  with  an  interest  that  proved 

1  And  from   France  in  Auguste  Comte  there  is  to  be  found, 
perhaps,  the  only  example  of  last  century  of  a  social  student  clearly 
trying  to  relate  woman's  biological  capacity  to  her  social  functions. 
Whether  he  succeeded  or  not  is  not  my  point ;  he  at  least  saw  the 
real  scientific  need.     Motherhood,  the  Madonna  ideal  and  chivalry, 
may  be  all  more  closely  connected  with  true  femininist  growth  of 
thought  than  is  usually  imagined,  as  Italy  seems  to  suggest. 

2  Finland  might  seem  an  exception,  but  I  am  not  referring  to 
legislation,  but  to  sex  feelings  and  the  mental  interest  and  thought 
aroused  on  the  subject.     Great  national  differences  in  sex  status 
have  always  existed,  Chaldea  and  Egypt,  and  Dorian,  ./Eolian,  and 
Ionian  Greeks  are  also  examples. 


1 2  The  Nature  of  Woman 

the  subject  was  already  exciting  considerable  at- 
tention. Richard  Mulcaster,  as  early  as  I58I,1  sup- 
ported a  higher  ideal  of  education  for  women,  and 
he  refers  to  public  opinion  as  supporting  him  in  this 
view.  The  question  of  sex  emancipation  must  have 
been  discussed  in  some  slight  degree,  therefore, 
previous  to  his  statement,  but  the  movement,  such 
as  it  was,  came  from  the  man's  side,  and  there  is  no 
hint  that  woman  felt  in  any  conscious  degree  any 
bondage  at  the  time  he  wrote  on  the  subject.  Mary 
Astell's  work  is,  therefore,  the  first  to  point  out 
clearly  that  women  as  women  objected  to  the 
limitations  imposed  upon  them.  It  is  also  to  be 
noted  that  in  her  view  woman  was  an  inferior  kind 
of  man,  having  unlike  sexual  functions,  and  her 
work,  which  is  quaintly  written,  pleads  for  higher 
education  for  women,  on  the  ground  of  it  making 
her  more  interesting  to  man  quite  as  much  as  for 
her  feminine  functions  and  her  own  life.  So  that 
the  first  stage  of  the  woman's  movement  began  by 
a  denial  of  woman's  womanhood  ;  woman  was  from 
this  early  aspect  simply  a  female  man,  and  as  such 
it  was  expedient,  even  with  her  own  inferior  powers, 
to  educate  her.  After  an  attempt  to  prove  that 
there  is  no  difference  of  sex  in  the  soul,  she  con- 
tinues (p.  12,  3rd  edition)  :  "  Neither  can  it  be  in 
the  body  (if  I  may  credit  the  report  of  learned 
physicians),  for  there  is  no  difference  in  the  organi- 
sation of  those  parts  which  have  any  relation  to  or 
influence  over  the  mind  ;  but  the  brain  and  all 

1  It  is  curious  that  so  long  as  man  had  a  contempt  for  learning 
and  left  tf,  as  he  did  in  the  early  mediaeval  period,  in  woman's 
hands,  she  herself  did  not  value  it  highly  either. 


The  Woman's  Movement        13 

other  parts  (which  I  am  not  anatomist  enough  to 
mention)  are  contrived  as  well  for  the  plentiful 
conveyance  of  spirits  which  are  held  to  be  the 
immediate  instruments  of  sensation,  in  women  as  in 


men." 


To  a  man  this  unconsciousness  of  the  sexual 
differences  of  the  mind  on  the  part  of  a  woman 
is  remarkable.  That  a  man  of  this  period,  who 
scarcely  troubled  himself  about  woman's  real 
nature,  should  have  passed  them  over  is  not  sur- 
prising ;  but  that  a  woman,  writing  for  the  first 
time  about  a  new  subject,  with  her  thoughts 
turned  freshly  in  her  own  direction,  should  have 
passed  over  certain  obvious  differences,  and  assumed 
that  the  minds  of  men  and  women  were  alike,  is 
indeed  puzzling,  and  what  is  even  more  curious  is 
that  in  some  quarters  the  idea  still  persists.1  This 
persistence  is  surely  itself  strong  evidence  of  one 
unlikeness  that  more  than  one  student  of  sexual 
psychology  has  pointed  out,  namely,  woman's  less 
intense  analytic  consciousness  of  her  own  person- 
ality. Possibly  also  of  a  reticence  to  lay  bare  what 
is  there. 

The  next  defence  of  the  woman's  claim  for  wider 
opportunities  took  up  a  transitional  attitude.  It 
assumed  that  the  minds  of  men  and  women  were 
different,  but  considered  that  these  differences  were 
due  to  different  habits  of  life  and  training,  forgetful 
of  the  obvious  fact  that  mental  differences  are 

1  An  American  woman  writer  puts  forward  the  claim  of  Mary 
Astell  in  words  that  might,  indeed,  have  been  those  of  the  older 
authoress  ;  she  writes  :  "  There  is  no  female  brain.  The  brain 
is  not  an  organ  of  sex.  As  well  speak  of  a  female  liver." 
("  Women  and  Economics."  Oilman.) 


14  The  Nature  of  Woman 

marked  in  higher  birds  and  mammals  who  are  not 
differently  trained  nor  differently  environed  in  early 
life,  forgetful,  too,  of  the  unquestionable  influence 
that  male  and  female  reproductive  glands  exert  on 
the  individual  as  a  whole.  Emasculated  animals 
develop  feminine  characteristics,  the  more  marked 
the  earlier  the  operation  has  been  performed. 
Female  birds  whose  plumage  has  been  typical,  when 
they  cease  to  lay  eggs  at  times  acquire  the  plumage 
of  a  cock.  Crowing  hens  that  never  lay,  and  women 
whose  attributes  change  "  at  the  change  of  life," 
and  who  may  at  this  period  acquire  masculine 
characters,  and  even  a  thin  beard,  are  well-known 
phenomena,  with  the  mental  characteristics  that 
accompany  them.  Such  are  only  a  few  common 
facts  that  have  long  been  recognised,  which  prove, 
quite  apart  from  other  scientific  evidence,  that  sex 
is  of  biological,  of  mental  and  bodily  significance. 

Mary  Wollstonecraft  and  John  Stuart  Mill  both 
assumed  that  woman's  mind  differed  because 
woman  had  been  prevented  from  using  it ;  and  Helen 
Thompson,  an  American  authoress,  after  establish- 
ing by  experiment  mental  differences  between  men 
and  women,  follows  in  Mill's  footsteps,  and  attempts 
to  reason  away  her  results.  Woman  is,  of  course,  not 
a  mere  female  man,  but  a  woman  possessed  of 
womanliness ;  and  though  there  are  manly  women 
and  womanly  men,  and  men  with  female  minds  and 
women  with  male  ones,  yet  womanliness  is  a  broad 
characteristic  of  woman  and  manliness  of  man. 

The  first  stage  of  the  woman's  movement,  based 
upon  woman's  likeness  to  man,  was  erroneous,  and 
the  second  stage,  that  thought  the  unlikeness 


The  Woman's  Movement        15 

existed    but   was    acquired l    and   was   unnatural 
proves  also  to  be  untrue. 

There  is  yet  a  third  line  of  argument  that  Mary 
Wollstonecraft  ("  Rights  of  Woman,"  1792)  and 
Mill  ("  Subjection  of  Woman,"  1869)  attempted 
to  justify,  namely,  that  a  woman  had  certain 
ethical  rights  in  the  state,  and  that  these  were  not 
respected.  This  ethical  issue  became  the  one  that 
dominated  the  whole  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  move- 
ment, permeated  our  education  system  when 
women  were  given  larger  opportunities,  and  has,  in 
the  opinion  of  many,  led  to  some  serious  dangers  in 
modern  life. 

That  the  rights  of  woman  might  be  equal  in  value 
to  the  rights  of  man  and  yet  not  be  identical  never 
occurred  to  English  or  American  men  and  women. 
That  it  might  be  granted  that  women  had  been 
treated  badly,  be  admitted  that  there  was  need  of 
reform,  and  yet  that  people  should  disagree  with 
the  aim  of  the  emancipationists  to  give  the  woman 
the  same  educational  and  occupational  opportunities 
as  the  man,  was  a  position  that  was  summarily  dis- 
missed. The  whole  question  of  woman's  nature  was 
disregarded.  The  spirit  of  the  age  was  against 
woman's  development,  though  it  favoured  in  ex- 
treme quarters  her  emancipation,  and  it  may  be 
that  woman  has  been  sacrificed  to  an  extent  that 
after-ages  are  likely  to  regret. 

It  was  a  misfortune  that  in  England  the  two 
pioneers  who  were  accepted  by  the  nation  were  pre- 
cisely those  who  from  experience  knew  little  or 

1  Acquired  characteristics  are  not  hereditary  according  to  the 
best-informed  modern  biological  authorities. 


1 6  The  Nature  of  Woman 

nothing  of  the  higher  aspects  either  of  womanhood 
or  of  manhood,  their  knowledge  being  mainly  con- 
fined to  one  sex. 

Mary  Wollstonecraft  had  an  unfortunate  example 
of  manhood  in  her  father,  and  there  was  almost  con- 
stant misery  in  the  home  of  her  early  years.  And 
Mill,  by  a  curious  and  regrettable  coincidence,  was 
trained  on  an  asexual  system  by  his  father,  being 
almost  exclusively  deprived  of  womanly  influences 
in  his  surroundings.  The  ignorance  of  man's 
higher  nature  that  exists  in  the  woman  leader's 
writings,  and  the  ignorance  of  woman's  in  the  man's, 
is  thus  partially  accounted  for.  But  the  people  of 
England  must  themselves  have  acquiesced  in  this 
faulty  position,  otherwise  other  leaders  would  have 
been  found.  One  such  possible  man  l  certainly 
existed. 

That  the  identical  rights  argument  proved  itself 
a  fallacious  one  subsequent  events  have  established. 

As  no  one  in  the  movement  tried  to  discover  what 
woman's  powers  were,  men  soon  took  their  own 
standard  of  comparison.  If  women  were  as  fitted 
as  men,  why  was  it  that  in  art,  which  she  had  had 
some  practical  knowledge  of  for  centuries,  no  great 
woman  artist  had  been  produced  ?  Why  was  there 
not  a  woman  Michael  Angelo  ?  why  not  a  woman 
Titian  or  a  Raphael  ?  Raphael  had  painted 
motherhood  even,  yet  no  woman  had  equalled  him. 
Music,  too,  had  been  her  study,  yet  there  had  been 
no  woman  Mozart,  no  woman  Beethoven.  And 

1  See  "National  Review,"  October,  1858,  an  article  by  W.  C. 
Roscoe,  afterwards  published  in  volume  form,  1860,  after  the  writer's 
death  in  1859  ;  and  the  "Supplementary  Chapter"  of  this  book, 


The  Woman's  Movement        17 

then  it  was  remembered  that  there  was  a  time  when 
reading  was  more  cultivated  by  women  than  men, 
when,  in  the  early  Middle  Ages,  men  looked  with 
contempt  on  the  study  of  things  mental,  yet  no 
recognised  woman  authoress  of  this  time  has  been 
discovered.  And  up  to  the  present  time  in  dress, 
furnishing,  cookery,  and  domestic  life,  inventions 
and  designs  have  been  mainly  by  men  (as,  for  ex- 
ample, Chippendale  and  Sheraton  in  furniture, 
Worth  in  dress,  Liebig  in  food  preparations).  So, 
as  men  still  wished  to  deal  justly  by  women,  and 
women  still  expressed  the  desire  to  be  freed  from 
unjust  restrictions  that  hampered  them,  a  new  kind 
of  argument  to  meet  this  difficulty  of  woman's 
failure  grew  up. 

It  began  to  be  tacitly  assumed  that  woman  was 
inferior  to  man,  and  Huxley  only  voiced  the  ten- 
dency of  the  time  he  wrote  in  when  he  asserted  that 
women  and  the  lower  races  must  both  be  emanci- 
pated, if  not  entirely  for  their  own  sakes,  at  least  for 
those  who  held  them  enslaved.  He  asserted,  and 
with  truth,  that  emancipation  benefited  the  emanci- 
pator more  than  the  emancipated.  And,  as  a  result 
of  this  persistent  effort,  woman  has  attained  some 
kind  of  emancipation.  But  the  added  freedom  has 
not  satisfied  her.  Why  ?  Is  it  not  because  it  has 
not  been  founded  on  her  natural  capacity  ? 

She  has  largely  obtained  economic  independence, 
with  the  result  that  she  has  depreciated  man's  wage- 
earning  value,  and  in  many  industries  is  displacing 
him  entirely.1 

Where  before  the  unmarried  woman  had  diffi- 

1  See  Minority  Report  of  Poor  Law  Commission,  1909,  etc. 

8 


1 8  The  Nature  of  Woman 

culty  in  obtaining  employment,  now  the  married  man 
with  wife  and  family  has  partly  the  difficulty  that 
the  single  woman  had  to  face.  The  lazy  married 
man,  too,  has  found  out  that  it  is  useful  for  his  wife 
to  be  able  to  work,  and  so  he  stops  at  home,  or 
rather  at  the  corner  of  the  nearest  public-house,  and 
the  wife,  thus  fettered,  neglects  her  home,  neglects 
her  duties  to  her  children,  puts  her  babies  out  to  be 
bottle-fed,  and  suffer  illness  and  death  while  she 
often  performs  the  man's  work  at  a  woman's 
current  wage.  A  type  of  woman  has  meanwhile 
grown  up  almost  without  domestic  education, 
who  prefers  public  life  to  the  home  under  any 
conditions. 

What  prompted  woman  to  feel  dissatisfied  was 
never  discovered,  and  has  not  been  discovered  at 
the  present  time.  What  dissatisfied  her  in  her  in- 
dividual life,  what  dissatisfied  her  in  her  public  life, 
remains  unrecognised.  She  has  been  merely  treated 
as  a  sexless  being,  as  a  man  with  female  functions,  or 
as  an  inferior  human  being  having  a  subordinate 
social  value,  and  precisely  what  the  value  was  re- 
mained unknown. 

Why  women  were  fairly  satisfied  with  their  lives 
till  two  hundred  years  ago  ;  why  this  dissatisfaction 
broke  out  only  in  the  cultured  parts  of  the  world, 
and  there  only  in  the  more  cultured  classes,  has 
never  been  studied. 

Our  movement,  though  a  sincere  and  sympathetic 
one,  and  this  is  to  its  credit,  supported  by  men  as 
well  as  women,  has  miscarried,  and  woman's  nature 
and  the  origin  of  her  discontent  remains  now,  as 
before,  unknown.  This  is  lamentable. 


The  Woman's  Movement        19 

Germany 

The  writers  in  Germany  who  have  written  on 
woman's  nature  have  shown  themselves  to  have 
knowledge  and  sympathy  mainly  for  those  elements 
which  are  merely  common  to  all  females,  and  are  not 
characteristically  woman's  at  all,  and  have  asserted 
from  this  knowledge  that  woman  is  therefore  man's 
inferior.1  It  would,  of  course,  be  as  logical  for 
woman  to  retort  that  taking  a  general  estimate  of 
the  male  elements  in  man,  he  could  not  compare 
with  woman  on  her  human  side,  and  that  the 
womanly  promptings  of  her  being  were  always 
lowered  by  his  male  assertiveness.  One  would  have 
expected,  had  there  not  been  such  indisputable 
evidence  to  the  contrary,  that  it  would  be  un- 
necessary to  point  out  that  all  investigations  into 
the  nature  of  woman  must  take  note  of  woman's 
whole  nature,  and  not  inaccurately  assume  that, 
while  man  has  a  human  individuality  that  is  man's 
prerogative,  woman  has  no  individuality  beyond 
that  which  she  shares  with  all  higher  female  life 
Yet  this  axiomatic  assumption,  which  alone  car 
make  a  study  on  this  subject  valuable,  has  been 
wholly  disregarded. 

It  is  true  that  poets  like  Schiller  have  written 
sympathetically  about  woman,  but  these  have  not 
been  students  of  her  nature,  nor  have  they  been 

1  The  same  view  is  taken  on  the  scientific  aspect  of  the  subject. 
There  are,  however,  many  notable  exceptions  to  this,  Professor 
Max  Miiller  being  one,  but  the  general  tendency  is  to  this  effect  in 
literature  and  science.  The  German  people  as  a  whole  adopt  a 
saner  and  more  wholesome  view. 


20  The  Nature  of  Woman 

specially  associated  with  the  question  of  her  de- 
velopment. Of  the  names  that  are  so  associated 
almost  all  are  hostile,  and  to  some  degree  unhealthy 
in  their  tone,  and  all  profoundly  selfish. 

I  shall  not,  therefore,  attempt  to  seriously  criticise 
the  German  position,  because  it  is  self-condemned 
by  its  disregard  of  what  is  essentially  womanly.  It 
will  only  be  necessary  to  point  out  the  leading 
assumptions  that  have  given  the  movement  its 
characteristic  tone. 

Schopenhauer's  writings  on  woman  and  on  love 
may  be  dismissed,  because  in  reality  he  neither 
writes  of  woman  nor  of  love,  but  only  of  one  and 
that  the  lower  aspect  of  woman's  nature.  He  should 
dissatisfy  men  no  less  than  women  by  his  assump- 
tions, as,  for  instance,  his  contention  that  fidelity  is 
impossible  to  man,  which  is  in  flagrant  opposition 
to  historic  facts,  which  prove  that  the  tendency  of 
progressive  civilised  life  is  increasingly  towards 
monogamy  and  mind  comradeship  in  marriage,  and 
that  domestic  ideals  as  shown  in  poetry  and  fiction 
favour  more  and  more  positively  mutual  sex  purity 
of  living  ; l  and  his  assertion  that  man's  form  is 
artistically  superior  to  the  woman's  is  contrary  to 
all  expert  knowledge  on  the  subject.  A  man  so 
prejudiced  in  favour  of  man  cannot  be  accepted 
seriously. 

Von  Hartmann's  comparison  of  the  sexes  is 
simply  an  endeavour  to  prove  that  chastity  in  the 

1  Some  evidence  of  relaxation  has  been  recently  manifested,  but 
for  reasons  given  by  Spencer  and  Westermarck  this  is  not  likely  to 
continue,  as  there  would  seem  to  be  a  permanent  and  increasing  need 
for  monogamy  under  advancing  conditions  of  society. 


The  Woman's  Movement        21 

man  is  unnecessary  and  unnatural,  while  it  is  an 
essential  quality  in  woman.  He  asserts  that  "  phy- 
siological shortcomings  "  are  the  basis  of  man's 
morality,  assuming  without  one  word  of  proof  and 
without  one  single  fact  in  support  of  his  contention, 
that  self-control  in  man  is  associated  with  weak 
sexual  impulse. 

Marriage  on  this  basis  is  solely  on  the  man's  side 
a  matter  of  sensuality ;  he  states  that  "  if  man 
wanted  nothing,  then  woman  would  have  nothing 
valuable  to  give  him,  in  which  case  the  influence  of 
the  gentler  sex  over  the  male  would  diminish  to 
vanishing  point."  He  fails  to  realise  that  man  would 
be  gross  indeed  if  daily  contact  with  a  womanly 
mind  had  no  influence  on  his  own. 

Recently  a  work  on  "  Sex  and  Character  "  has 
been  published,  the  work  of  a  young  man  who 
wrote  his  book  before  reaching  his  twenty-first 
year,  and  who  committed  suicide  before  his  twenty- 
fourth.  It  is  ill-informed  and  unsupported  by 
evidence,  but  it  is  shrewdly  written.  There  is, 
however,  little  evidence  of  impartiality  in  his 
criticism  of  women  ;  and  although  he  does  not 
wholly  lack  intuitive  insight,  this,  such  as  it  is,  is 
limited  to  one  aspect  of  the  female  character, 
namely,  the  influence  of  brute  strength  on  physical 
weakness  and  fragility. 

There  is  a  similar  disposition  in  German  sex 
psychologists,  which  is,  unfortunately,  shared  by 
some  French  and  English  scientists,  to  treat  the 
psychology  of  sex  from  the  physical  point  of  view. 
So  far  has  this  unwholesome  tendency  gone  that 
many  writers  for  the  general  public  have  published 


22  The  Nature  of  Woman 

larger  volumes  "  for  its  benefit  "  than  is  allotted 
to  such  matters  in  medical  text-books  for  the 
medical  man  acting  as  trained  adviser.  This  fact 
alone  is  sufficient  condemnation  of  the  movement. 

Exceptions 

I  have  tried  to  give  a  fair  impression  of  the 
general  trend  of  the  movement  in  the  two  countries. 
I  have  shown  that  in  England  men  were  sympathetic 
but  lacking  in  intuitive  power,  that  they  acted  as  if 
woman  must  dewomanise  herself  and  become  man- 
like in  order  to  be  free,  and  that  woman  felt  this 
position  to  be  a  true  one  herself.  This  attempt,  as 
was  to  be  expected,  inevitably  failed.  In  Germany 
also  the  same  lack  of  intuitive  power  is  apparent, 
but  the  Germans  were  led  to  a  belief  that  woman's 
womanly  qualities  were  only  feminine  and  could  be 
studied  as  such. 

Of  course,  in  both  countries  there  were  women 
and  men  who  did  not  share  these  feelings ;  women 
happily  married,  as  men  when  vocationally  well 
satisfied,  seldom  express  their  feelings.  It  was 
mainly  those  men  and  women  who  were  dissatisfied 
with  woman's  position  who  asserted  themselves. 
Nevertheless,  there  could  be  little  doubt  that  a 
general  dissatisfaction  did  exist,  and  that  in 
England  it  was  popular  and  supported  by  the 
general  feeling,  while  in  Germany  it  was  disliked 
and  overborne. 

Two  writers,  however,  one  an  Englishman,  the 
other  a  German  woman,  have  taken  this  problem  as 
it  deserved  to  be  taken,  seriously  and  respectfully, 


The  Woman's  Movement        23 

and  have  each  given  important  contributions  to  the 
study. 

In  the  October  number  of  the  "  National 
Review"  for  the  year  1858,  already  referred  to, 
appeared  an  unsigned  article l  on  "  Woman," 
which,  though  nominally  a  review  of  some  works  on 
the  subject,  is  in  reality  an  original  essay,  far  the 
most  original  one  I  have  ever  had  the  pleasure  of 
reading.  In  it  every  argument  of  real  strength  for 
and  against  the  woman's  movement,  that  has  been 
used  in  the  fifty  odd  years  that  followed  its  publi- 
cation, will  be  found  summarised.  That  so  able  a 
statement  excited  so  little  comment  is  truly  re- 
markable. 

The  writer  is  free  alike  from  the  follies  of  German 
and  English  schools  of  thought.  He  starts  from  the 
only  scientific  position  possible  under  the  circum- 
stances, that  woman  has  an  individuality  of  her  own, 
and  that  this  needs  interpreting  before  her  nature 
can  be  understood. 

At  a  time  when  it  was  being  asserted  in  England 
that  woman's  mind  was  not  less  original  than  man's, 
and  a  decade  before  Mill's  "  Subjection  of  Women  " 
urged  the  same  untenable  belief,  he  emphasised  the 
fact  of  man's  clear  and  undisputed  predominance  in 
the  following  words  :  "  Society  ever  since  the  world 
began  has  received  its  characteristic  nature  and  dis- 
tinctive impress,  not  from  the  women,  but  from  the 
men  who  helped  to  compose  it."2  This  is  shown 
by  the  predominance  of  the  masculine  and  manly 
elements  in  all  terms  of  thought  and  expression, 

1  By  W.  C.  Roscoe. 

2  See  note  on  next  page. 


24  The  Nature  of  Woman 

"  and  the  world's  history  confirms  it,  that  the 
collective  body  of  men  are  in  their  nature  more 
strong,  more  vigorous,  more  comprehensive,  more 
complete  in  themselves  than  women."  He  here 
carefully  guards  himself  against  exceptions  by  the 
use  of  the  words  "  collective  body  "  of  men  as  com- 
pared with  a  like  "  collective  body  "  of  women.  To 
the  argument  that  women  have  not  had  fair  oppor- 
tunities he  replies  by  pointing  out  that  had  they  had 
the  mental  ability  they  would  have  discovered  them. 
He  urges  that  woman's  influence  is  now  less  than  it 
was  before  the  advent  of  "  The  Scientific  Age,"  and 
states,  as  recent  writers  have  since  admitted,  that 
this  lessening  influence  has  created  "  a  sort  of  chasm 
between  men  and  women."  He  connects  woman's 
subordination  with  the  growth  of  "  material  in- 
dustry," and  he  urges  woman  to  base  her  just 
claims  to  a  larger  life  not  upon  the  false  basis  of  a 
non-existent  equality,  but  upon  the  "  unexpugnable 
position  of  her  real  nature." 

Where  writers,  governed  by  a  desire  to  assert  the 
claim  of  man's  superiority  over  woman,  have  charac- 
terised her  intuitions  as  mere  instincts,  and  placed 
her,  as  some  German  writers  have  done  for  this 
reason,  with  animals  generally,  he  justly  points  out 
that  these  intuitions  of  women  are  due  to  greater 
delicacy  of  perceptive  powers,  and  that  woman's 
intellect  is  complementary  to  man's,  offering  sugges- 
tions to  his,  that  in  his  brain  become  material  for 
original  thought. 

1  These  statements  are  not,  however,  quite  the  same,  and  while 
the  first  one  is  true,  the  second  can  only  be  accepted  with  important 
reservations. 


The  Woman's  Movement        25 

He  insists  on  the  obvious  but  neglected  fact,  that 
is  supported  by  our  knowledge  of  the  power  of 
appetites  in  man,  that  woman  is  better  in  her  nature 
but  less  noble  in  her  power  of  self-control  and  in- 
dependent responsibility,  and  in  a  fine  comparison  of 
the  two  natures  he  states  of  woman  that "  her  nature 
is  higher  than  man's,  but  man  is  set  above  his  nature." 

He  points  out  that  woman,  by  this  fineness  of  her 
character  and  by  her  weaker  will-power,  is  less  fitted 
for  the  coarser  struggles  of  life,  and  that  there  are 
special  considerations  in  her  case  which  do  not 
apply  to  man. 

He  pleads  for  a  wider  opportunity  for  mental 
culture,  and  asserts  that  the  assumed  objection  to 
cultured  women  is  unfounded.  "  Lieutenant  Smith, 
skilled  only  in  horses,  does  not  like  a  young  lady  to 
mention  Dante  ;  and  Jones,  who  has  contracted  all 
he  once  knew  into  a  familiarity  with  the  prices  of 
cotton,  trembles  to  be  asked  what  Kepler's  laws 
are  "  ;  but  "  it  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  educated 
men  prefer  the  society  of  uninformed  women. 
Perhaps,  indeed,  there  is  no  exercise  so  delightful, 
or  so  highly  appreciated  on  either  side,  as  the  inter- 
change of  ideas  between  the  cultured  minds  of  the 
different  sexes." 

He  denies  the  absurd  assumption  that  to  be 
womanly  one  must  necessarily  have  a  weak  per- 
sonality, for  "  a  manly  woman  is  a  very  feeble  man, 
a  feeble  man  is  a  manly  woman,  and  a  strong  woman 
is  a  strong  woman,  and  not  the  less  a  true  woman, 
and  very  different  from  what  we  call  a  strong- 
minded  one." 

The  following  analysis  of  the  cause  of  the  friend- 


26  The  Nature  of  Woman 

ship  of  sex  that  develops  into  love  is  truly  touched 
with  the  insight  of  genius. 

"  There  are  two  ways  in  which  women  and  men 
approach  and  modify  one  another.  The  one  is 
where  they  are  drawn  together  by  the  affections,1 
where  mutual  sympathies,  moral  and  intellectual, 
are  aroused.  .  .  .  Yet,  so  far  are  they  from  being 
merged  in  one  another  by  this  union,  that  each  sex 
acquires  from  it  its  most  complete  and  characteristic 
development ;  each  gains  from  the  other  and 
strengthens  what  it  has  best  of  its  own  ;  they  ap- 
proach not  by  abnegations  but  by  additions,  each 
from  the  other  of  what  is  necessary  to  raise  either  man 
or  woman  to  the  fullness  of  the  perfect  creature." 

"  The  other  mode  of  abroach  is  the  reverse  of  this, 
where  men  brought  up  apart  from  women,  and  women 
deterred  more  or  less  from  the  society  of  men,5  lose  not 
only  the  benefit  of  what  each  can  give  the  other,  but 
something  of  the  truest  characteristics  of  their  own 
sex,  which  are  not  developed  in  their  fullness  and 
beauty  except  when  the  affections  and  sympathies, 
aroused  by  free  intercourse,  have  their  full  play. 
These  men  and  women  approach  on  a  sort  of  neutral 
ground.  Such  women  are  more  of  men  than  the  others  ; 
but  it  is  because  they  are  less  of  women ;  the  two  grow  like 
one  another  by  respective  loss,  not  by  respective  gain"* 

Is  society,  he  asks,  prepared  to  sacrifice  the  former 
higher  type  for  the  latter  lower  ? 4  It  is  the  position 

1  Italics  mine. 

2  This  is  the  elementary  part  of  the  real  psychology  of  love  and 
gives  the  one  all-satisfying  sanction  to  marriage  which  no  other 
consideration  can  supply.  3  Italics  mine. 

4  The  lower  neutral  type  of  woman  has,  as  he  asserts,  largely 
dominated  the  woman's  movement,  but  she  did  not  create  it. 


The  Woman's  Movement        27 

of  this  lower  neutral  class  that  has  attracted  atten- 
tion. Is  it  not  possible  for  both  types  to  be  pro- 
vided for,  clearly,  realising  the  claims  of  the  higher  ? 
This  is  the  whole  central  position  of  the  woman's 
movement,  and  no  other  writer,  before  or  since,  has 
troubled  to  realise  what  accurate  answers  to  these 
questions  would  mean. 

Finally,  to  conclude  my  quotations  with  this 
warning,  given  before  our  factory  legislation  had 
acquired  its  strength,  and  which  is  still  of  tran- 
scendent social  importance  at  the  present  time  : 
Women  tend,  by  the  more  easy  disorganisation  of 
their  higher  but  more  delicate  minds,  to  acquire 
more  readily  than  men  the  possible  vices  of  occu- 
pational life.  Business  women,  he  says,  are  harder, 
have  less  feeling,  are  more  unscrupulous ;  fisher- 
women  become  worse  than  fishermen ;  female 
lodging-house  keepers  are  worse  than  male,  and  the 
fallen  woman  more  irretrievably  fallen.  The  broad 
truth  of  this  fact  is  undoubted,  and  it  is  confirmed 
from  all  recent  sources.  The  woman  drunkard  and 
morpho-maniac  carry  to  greater  excesses  than  the 
man  of  like  habits  does  the  craving  that  has  mastered 
them.  And  he  asks  a  question  that  few  will  be  pre- 
pared to  pass  over  lightly  :  "  Is  not  the  whole  position 
of  antagonistic  relations  and  contests  for  advantage 
with  the  other  sex  the  most  perilous  to  delicacy  and 
simple-mindedness  into  which  a  woman  can  enter?" 
And,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  he  connects  the 
separation  of  the  sexes,  their  lessened  harmony  with 
each  other,  with  this  spirit  of  antagonism  that  com- 
mercial competition  arouses. 

No  one  will  dispute  the  fact  that  the  relations  of 


28  The  Nature  of  Woman 

married  life  should  be  entirely  amicable,  that  in 
proportion  as  a  spirit  of  antagonism  is  aroused  in 
the  home  there  will  be  just  this  amount  of  failure, 
firstly  as  regards  husband  and  wife,  secondly  as 
regards  children,  should  they  become  parents.  A 
woman  who  has  once  acquired  an  irritable,  bicker- 
ing spirit,  which  she  tends  to  acquire  in  the  indus- 
trial struggle,  is  apt  to  carry  it  into  the  home,  and 
just  because  she  is  by  nature  non-combative,  so  the 
alternatives  in  the  struggle  in  which  she  is  nearly 
always  worsted  are  either  this  chronic  irritability 
or  a  broken,  wholly  submissive  spirit,  instead  of  the 
natural,  even  disposition  which  is  soothing  and  rest- 
ful to  all  that  the  healthy  woman  comes  in  contact 
with.  In  some  instances  the  man's  spirit  is  broken, 
not  the  wife's,  and  this  is,  of  course,  as  regrettable 
as  the  wife's  failure.  It  is  at  least  worth  considera- 
tion, therefore,  this  view  that  both  directly  and 
indirectly  certain  occupations  are  undesirable  for 
women,  and  we  may  not  feel  disposed  to  disagree 
with  the  "  National  Review  "  writer  when  he  asserts 
"  that  there  are  many  phases  of  the  life  of  industry 
totally  unfitted  for  woman  to  enter  on  ;  and  that 
so  far  from  its  being  to  be  desired  that  she  should 
mingle  in  and  understand  by  experience  the  diffi- 
culties with  which  many  men  have  to  contend,  it 
is  to  be  wished  that  her  atmosphere  should  be  as 
serene  and  her  growth  as  unwarped  as  the  conditions 
of  humanity  will  allow." l 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  interesting  to  observe 

1  Ruskin  might,  of  course,  be  quoted  for  similar  opinions,  and 
although  his  teaching  had  many  defects,  there  is  certainly  some 
truth  in  his  view. 


The  Woman's  Movement        29 

that  fifty  years  later,  after  bitter  experience,  this  is 
precisely  the  conclusion  that  saner  men  and  women 
are  coming  to.  Factory  life  under  any  circumstances 
debases  woman  generally,  and  there  are  many  callings 
unsuitable  for  girls  and  young  women  because  they 
unfit  them  in  future  years  for  the  possibilities  of 
married  life.  The  employment  of  married  women 
outside  the  home  (to  which  there  are,  obviously, 
justifiable  exceptions,  which  I  cannot  dwell  upon  in 
this  book,  owing  to  lack  of  space)  is  now  generally 
condemned  from  the  home  point  of  view,  for  the 
comfort,  order,  and  homeliness  of  life  is  difficult 
when  the  wife  works ;  from  the  child's  standpoint, 
for  the  children  are  generally  uncared  for,1  and 
from  the  woman's  own  outlook,  for  the  treble 
labour  of  industrial,  domestic,  and  childbirth  duties 
wear  her  out,  and  exhaust  her  to  an  unrealised  degree. 
The  more  masculine  her  type,  the  better  she  can 
thus  sterilise  herself,  but  the  womanly  woman  who 
influences  the  man  and  humanises  his  ideals,  who 
becomes  a  mother  to  her  children,  and  is  not  simply 
a  bearer  of  them,  is  spoilt,  distorted,  and  ruined  by 
the  strain  which  modern  life  conditions  often 
impose.2 

1  It  is,  of  course,  true  that  an  idle,  gossipy  woman  may,  and 
often  does,  keep  her  home  in  a  worst  state  than  one  engaged  at  a 
factory,  who  is  not  idle  and  cares  for  her  home,  but  this  seeming 
exception  does  not  invalidate  the  rule. 

2  I  have  myself  in  medical  practice  seen  this  disorganisation  of  a 
woman's    individuality  and    strength    repeatedly,  and  the  state  of 
unmarried  girl  clerks,  as  most  medical  men  can  testify  to,  is  often 
pitiable  in  the  extreme.     The  returns  of  Post  Office  clerks  where 
men  and  women  do  in  some  instances  almost  identical  work,  and 
where  women  tend  to  be  invalided  many    years  earlier  than  the 
men,  point  to  the  same  conclusion.    And  I  am  informed  that  in 


30  The  Nature  of  Woman 

"  On  the  other  hand,"  he  continues,  "  we  yet 
more  strongly  deprecate  anything  in  the  nature  of 
a  cloisteral  seclusion  or  an  enforced  idleness."  He 
believes  practical  life  employment  "  in  affairs  of  some 
kind  or  other  to  be  essential  to  the  healthy  condition 
and  just  development  of  every  individual,  male  or 
female,"  but  woman  must  follow  those  occupations 
"  which  are  most  in  consonance  with  her  nature  as 
it  is,  and  not  as  it  is  presumed  it  may  become." 

It  is  the  study  of  what  is  consonant  with  the  life  of 
a  true  man  and  what  with  a  true  woman  that  will  one 
day  decide  precisely  what  should  be  a  man's  field  and 
what  the  woman's.  It  is  not  a  matter  for  guess-work, 
nor  for  the  industrial  employer  to  discover  after  he 
has  ruined  thousands  and  thousands  of  lives,  but  for 
the  scientist  who  shall  take  up  such  an  investigation 
in  a  large-spirited  and  high-minded  manner. 

To  me,  therefore,  this  essay,  with  its  wide  grasp  of 
facts,  its  modern  outlook,  after  half  a  century  has 
passed  away,  is  far  more  deserving  of  preservation 
than  any  other  that  I  am  acquainted  with.  Here 
was  the  one  clear-sighted  Englishman  who  saw  the 

certain  London  banks  where  women  have  been  employed  the  same 
early  breakdown  has  been  observed. 

If  it  is  urged  that  the  wages  of  the  women  are  smaller  than 
men's,  which  is,  of  course,  true,  I  would  suggest  that  three  factors 
more  than  meet  this  contention  :  (i)  Many  women  are  partly 
supported  by  relatives  ;  (2)  the  woman  clerk  is  generally  unmarried  ; 
(3)  owing  to  the  fact  that  a  man  is  a  bad  manager  of  domestic 
matters  and  has  to  aim,  if  he  be  a  normal  man,  for  a  wage  that  will 
support  a  wife  and  possible  family  besides  himself,  his  own  income 
even  when  unmarried  is  much  less  in  excess  of  a  woman's  than  at 
first  sight  appears.  It  seems,  therefore,  probable  that  monotonous 
employments  are  peculiarly  hurtful  to  women.  And  this  example 
is  probably  only  one  of  many  others  not  yet  discovered. 


The  Woman's  Movement        31 

dangers  to  which  women  would  be  exposed,  who  was 
fitted  by  nature  and  culture  to  lead  the  English 
movement,  and  to  have  left  a  world  impression  be- 
hind him,  but  who  passed  into  oblivion  because  his 
work  was  drowned  by  the  anti-social  current  that 
swept  it  by. 

About  thirty  years  later  a  German  woman  com- 
menced writing  a  series  of  works  on  "  Modern 
Women,"  "The  Psychology  of  Woman,"  "We 
Women  and  our  Authors,"  etc.,  which  stand  out  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  general  mass  of  inferior  and 
unoriginal  volumes  on  this  subject  that  every  year 
make  their  appearance. 

In  her  preface  to  "  Modern  Women  "  she  states 
that  "  a  woman  who  seeks  freedom  by  means  of  the 
modern  method  of  independence  is  generally  one 
who  desires  to  escape  from  a  woman's  sufferings. 
She  is  anxious  to  avoid  subjection,  also  motherhood, 
and  the  dependence  and  impersonality  of  an  ordi- 
nary woman's  life,  but  in  doing  so  she  unconsciously 
deprives  herself  of  her  womanliness,"  and  there 
comes  a  time  in  the  lives  of  all  such  women  when 
they  find  themselves  "  standing  at  the  door  of  the 
heart's  innermost  sanctuary,"  and  realise  that  they 
are  excluded.  She  remarks  that  these  women  are 
generally  individualistic,  and  yet  are  not  able  to 
stand  alone. 

One  may  disagree,  and  I  think  justly,  with  her  use 
of  the  word  subjection,  as  if  it  were  an  unavoidable 
condition  of  womanhood  ;  one  may  hold  different 
views  from  the  authoress  in  her  assumption  that  the 
modern  woman  really  does  desire  to  escape  woman- 
hood, but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  there  is  a 


32  The  Nature  of  Woman 

desire  in  this  newer  type  to  shake  herself  free  of 
man's  influences,  that  she  is  not  satisfied  with  the 
old  conception  of  motherhood,  that  dependence  on 
the  man  is  in  some  way  unsatisfactory  to  her  feelings, 
and  that  home  life,  which  is,  of  course,  extremely 
personal,  and  not  impersonal  as  stated,  is  also  dis- 
tasteful to  her.  This  writer's  general  outlook  may 
be  summarised,  I  hope  not  unfairly,  as  follows  : 

Woman  is  a  much  less  independent  and  self-reliant 
being  than  man,  and  cannot  achieve  her  own  fulfil- 
ment alone  ;  mentally  and  physically  she  requires  his 
help  to  aid  in  her  own  development.  "  Woman, 
never,  nowhere,  and  in  nothing  can  make  a  starting- 
point,"  "  all  she  does,  performs,  or  suggests,  repre- 
sents always  but  a  deviation,  a  connection  with,  or 
continuation  of  something  already  produced,  exist- 
ing, done."  Mentally,  even  more  than  physically, 
she  requires  the  stimulus  of  man,  otherwise  her  life 
becomes  vacant  and  wasted.  "A  woman  has  no 
destiny  of  her  own  ;  she  cannot  have  one,  because  she 
cannot  exist  alone.  Neither  can  she  become  a 
destiny,  except  indirectly  through  the  man.  The 
more  womanly  she  is,  and  the  more  richly  endowed, 
all  the  more  surely  will  her  destiny  be  shaped  by  the 
man  who  takes  her  to  be  his  wife.  If,  then,  even  in 
the  case  of  the  average  woman,  everything  depends 
upon  the  man  whom  she  marries,  how  much  more 
true  this  must  be  in  the  case  of  the  woman  of  genius, 
in  whom  not  only  her  womanhood,  but  also  her 
genius,  needs  calling  to  life  by  the  embrace  of  a 
man.  And  if  even  the  average  woman  cannot  attain 
to  the  full  consciousness  of  her  womanhood  without 
man,  how  much  less  can  the  woman  of  genius,  in 


The  Woman's  Movement        33 

whom  sex  is  the  actual  root  of  her  being  and  the 
source  from  whence  she  derives  her  talent  and  her 
ego.  If  her  womanhood  remains  unawakened,  then 
however  promising  the  beginning  may  be,  her  life 
will  be  nothing  more  than  a  gradual  decay,  and  the 
stronger  her  vitality  the  more  terrible  will  the  death 
struggle  be." 

Dependence  is  natural  to  women,  it  is  unnatural 
to  men.  "  When  man  is  no  longer  the  supporter  of 
woman,  she  becomes  his  oppressor,"  as  the  woman 
always  acts  as  an  industrial  parasite.  The  under- 
selling of  man  by  woman,  the  necessary  result  of 
"  emancipation,"  brings  with  it,  as  men  are  less 
able  to  marry,  the  equally  inevitable  accompaniment, 
"  prostitution." 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  it  is  of  the  modern  womanly 
woman  only,  a^product  of  modern  times,  that  she 
writes,  and  in  support  of  her  contention  she  analyses 
very  strikingly  the  life  habits  of  several  repre- 
sentative women  of  this  class. 

The  woman  of  this  type  "  knows  nothing  of  her 
own  powers  until  the  man  comes  to  reveal  them." 
But  these  higher  women,  "unlike  ordinary  young 
girls,  do  not  fall  in  love  with  mere  outward  qualities." 
"  Physical  maturity,  which  has  hitherto  been  con- 
sidered sufficient,  has  placed  the  need  for  intellectual 
maturity  in  the  shade.  Surely  women  want  to  be 
grown  up  in  mind  and  soul  before  entering  life." 
As  their  life  development,  and  this  implies  a  mental 
rather  than  a  physical  ideal,  depends  upon  the  men 
they  choose  for  husbands,  and  it  is  this  mental  har- 
mony felt  between  two  individuals  that  attracts  and 
is  sought  for,  marriage  for  this  reason  becomes  in- 


34  The  Nature  of  Woman 

creasingly  difficult  to  them,  for  though  on  a  physical 
basis  many  men  would  be  pleasing  to  many  women, 
on  a  mental  it  requires  an  acquiescence  of  two  whole 
individualities  in  each  other,  and  this  is  rare.  Since 
the  reward  of  success  is  so  great,  and  the  price  of 
failure  so  terrible,  and  the  result  for  women  so  far- 
reaching,  the  withering  of  mind  and  body  that 
results  is  tragic. 

Finally,  as  this  new  life  is,  above  all  other  things, 
womanly,  so  it  is  the  manly,  and,  failing  this,  the 
male  man  that  appeals  to  her.  The  big  man  and  the 
little  woman,  the  man  of  strength  and  courage,  and 
the  woman  who  feels  the  need  and  liking  for  pro- 
tection, are  grouped  together.  This  new  type  of 
woman,  a  woman  in  her  whole  nature,  has  given  up 
the  combative  element,  which  has  always  charac- 
terised man,  to  man  entirely.  She  is  no  scold,  no 
virago,  and  she  would  appeal  to  the  man  through 
one  element,  love.  Such  is  Laura  Marholm's  (now 
Laura  Hansson's)  interpretation  of  women.  A  com- 
parison of  the  essential  positions  of  the  two  writers, 
a  man  who  knew  how  to  interpret  a  woman's  nature 
and  a  woman  not  afraid  to  explain  what  in  herself 
she  felt  to  be  truth,  has  not  a  little  interest  in  show- 
ing how  sincere  workers  on  any  problem  tend  to 
reach  like  results  (see  Appendix,  p.  39). 

Writer  "  National  Review  "  l  Hansson l 

(i)  Men  as  a  body  more  (i)  A  woman  has  no  destiny 
original,  strong,  vigorous,  more  apart  from  man.  Woman  never 

1  There  are  manyv  faults  in  both  these  writers'  outlooks  ;  neither 
adequately  consider  the  position  of  the  unmarried  woman,  and  the 
values  of  the  masculine  type  of  woman  and  feminine  type  -of  man 
receive  no  attention ;  but  this  is  a  side  criticism. 


The  Woman's  Movement        35 


Writer  "  National  Review  " 


Hansson 


complete    in     themselves    than 
women. 


(2)  The  manly  man  and  the 
womanly  woman  are  the  essential 
factors  in  the  situation. 

(3)  The  personal  element  is 
the  big  element  in  woman,  the 
collective  element  in  man.    Wo- 
man's   industrial    life   must    be 
governed  by  her  nature. 

(4)  Woman's  nature  is  higher 
than  man's,  but  man  is  set  above 
his  nature.^ 

(5)  Woman  requires  protec- 
tion for  the  finer  elements  of  her 
nature. 

(6) 


(7)  The  woman's  rights  move- 
ment essentially  due  to  neutral 
types  of  women  unhappy  in  their 
development. 

(8)  A  chasm  has  arisen  be- 
tween men  and  women. 

(9) 


(10)  Woman's   truest   sphere 
is  that  which  is  aloof  from  the 


original  by  her  own  influence. 
Man  is  essential  to  make  her 
realise  herself. 

Man  mentally  and  physically 
the  creative  organism,  woman 
the  bearing  and  developing. 

(2)  Woman  grows  more  con- 
scious of  herself  by  her  growing 
womanly  individuality. 

(3)  Women    feel    personally, 
and  for  this  reason  are  unfitted 
for  the  roughness  of  life.     Men 
feel  collectively  and  are  not  thus 
injured. 

(4)  Woman  has  a  deep  in- 
tuition to  rise  above >  to  escape  from 
her  ego. 

(5)  Woman  requires  protec- 
tion for  mind  or  soul,  and  body. 

(6)  Nothing    is    more     ten- 
acious than  these  small,  slender, 
pliant  women. 

(?)  Rights  of  woman  move- 
ment results  from  futile  efforts  at 
protection  in  the  unfortunately 
married  or  in  the  unmarried. 

(8)  Men    and   women    have 
never  been  so  widely  separated 
from  each  other. 

(9)  Man  thinks  coarsely  about 
women     and     woman     stupidly 
about  men.2 

(10)  Economic  independence 
desired  by  woman  is  yet  fatal  to 


1  Italics  mine.     This  mental  desire  and  realisation  of  the  other's 
fullness  by  what  is  lacking  and  felt  to  be  lacking  in  each,  one 
element  of  love. 

2  The  German  view  referred  to  in  my  text. 


36  The  Nature  of  Woman 

Writer  "  National  Review  "  Hansson 


her,  and  she  is  always  a  parasite 
on  man  in  this  unsupported 
relation. 

( 1 1 )  Woman  is  anxious  to 
avoid  subjection,  motherhood, 
and  dependence,  and  her  home 
dissatisfies  her.  But  her  woman- 
liness and  happiness  are  bound 
up  with  these  things. 


(12)  Newer  type  of  woman- 
hood wishes  to  be  mentally 
mature  as  well  as  physically 
before  marriage. 


harassing  and  exhausting  strug- 
gles of  daily  bread  earning. 
Woman  does  not  elevate  indus- 
trial life,  but  degrades  it. 

(n)  There  is  no  bitterer 
satire  passed,  or  graver  injustice 
done  to  women,  than  by  those 
of  their  own  sex,  who  assume 
so  passionately  that  everything 
that  is  masculine  must  be  desir- 
able for  women,  and  better  than 
what  they  have  of  their  own  ; 
the  claim  should  rather  be  the 
extension  of  the  woman's  field 
than  the  usurpation  of  man's. 

(12)  The    mental   nature    of 
the  woman  appeals  strongly  to 
the  cultured  man. 

(13)  Woman's    social    value 
and    social    rights    rest    on    her 
womanly  nature  solely. 

Neither  of  these  studies  are  comprehensive 
enough,  nor  are  they  founded  sufficiently  securely 
upon  scientific  data  to  be  of  more  than  suggestive 
value  to  modern  investigators,  but  they  both  help 
to  give  a  fairly  true  picture  of  the  subject,  and  in 
this  make  it  more  real  and  personal.  Their  agree- 
ments, as  may  be  seen  from  the  thirteen  points 
taken  from  their  works,  is  remarkable,  with  perhaps 
the  exception  of  the  fourth  point,  and  where  their 
views  do  not  coincide  they  supplement.  There  can, 
I  think,  be  no  doubt  that  ultimately  it  is  along  the 
lines  that  are  here  laid  down  that  future  work  will 
proceed. 


The  Woman's  Movement        37 

It  will  be  seen,  I  hope,  from  this  analysis  of  the 
woman's  emancipation  that  it  has  led  inevitably  to 
a  consideration  of  man's.  Woman's  desire  for 
emancipation  was  probably  aroused  by  man's 
initiatory  feeling  that  woman  should  have  better 
educational  opportunities ;  this  and  an  upgrowth  of 
a  new  type  of  womanhood  have  led  cultured  men  in 
England  to  like  cultured  women,  while  the  un- 
cultured men  and  women  have  endeavoured  to 
retard  the  development  of  woman's  higher  life. 
The  question,  therefore,  is  not  exclusively  a  woman's 
question,  but  is  really  a  sexual  one.  We  have  seen 
that  woman  is  now  desirous  of  becoming  mentally 
mature  before  she  undertakes  the  responsibilities  of 
married  life,  and  that  she  now  is  tending  to  apply  a 
mental  as  well  as  a  physical  standard  to  man,  and 
that  her  love  is  only  given  when  her  whole  indi- 
viduality is  satisfied.  Is  it  possible  that  woman's  dis- 
content is  not  so  much  dissatisfaction  with  her 
womanhood  and  its  duties  as  with  the  prospect  of 
defective  self-realisation  that  is  offered  her  ?  Per- 
haps the  assertion  of  men  that  women  are  neglecting 
their  duties  and  shirking  their  burdens  is  only 
partially  a  just  one.1  Perhaps  woman  is  rightly 

1  Many  years  ago,  as  near  as  I  can  remember  about  fourteen,  I 
heard  a  lecture  by  Dr.  Henry  Rayner  on  "  Adolescence,"  in 
which  he  stated  that  the  modern  girl's  development  was  retarded  by 
her  education,  but  he  did  not  seem  to  consider  that  this  retardation 
was  harmful.  I  have  since  heard  this  view  frequently  expressed  by 
men  and  women  whose  opportunities  for  observation  have  been 
large,  and  some  of  them  seem  to  believe,  and  I  personally  share 
this  belief,  that  the  retardation  is  never  completely  made  up  in  after- 
years.  Should  this  be  so,  part  of  woman's  dissatisfaction  may  be 
due  to  this  unhealthy  cause. 


38  The  Nature  of  Woman 

dissatisfied  with  her  relation  to  the  man  and  the 
child.  Does  she  object  to  maternity  ?  Is  her 
creative  feeling  of  motherhood  declining  ? 

Of  this,  however,  I  am  convinced,  that  the 
question  of  woman's  distinctive  individuality,  men- 
tal and  bodily  alike  being  recognised,  lies  at  the 
root  of  all  fruitful  investigation  on  the  "  woman's 
question "  as  regards  her  education,  her  social 
position  and  representation,  and  her  own  and  man's 
relationship  in  the  home.1 

In  conclusion,  I  wish  to  make  an  appeal  to  women 
and  men  to  take  a  broader  and  wiser  view  of  this 
problem,  and  to  feel  earnestly  enough  about  it  to 
study  what  it  really  means.  The  majority  of  women 
are,  and  always  will  be,  wives  and  mothers,  and 
certain  healthy  individual  and  national  needs  of 
living  are  necessarily  postulated  by  this  fact.  What 
are  they  ?  All  women  have  distinctive  inherited 
qualities  of  mind  and  body  which  need  healthy  ex- 
pression, as  well  as  other  qualities  common  to  both 
sexes.  Do  we  appreciate  what  these  distinctive 
womanly  attributes  are  ?  Nearly  all  thoughtful 
men  and  women  are  extremely  dissatisfied  with  the 
dominance  of  the  lower  commercialism  over  higher 
mind  ideals.  But  this  is  not  a  sex,  but  a  human 
question. 

What  is  the  cause  of  woman's  discontent  with 
modern  womanly  opportunities  ?  This  is  what  we 
have  to  investigate,  but  which  has  never  been  in- 
vestigated. The  desire  on  the  part  of  some  women 
for  franchise  changes,  of  others  for  increased  occu- 

1  There  is  apparently  no  work  existent  from  this  point  of  view 
in  any  country  on  any  one  or  all  of  these  four  aspects. 


The  Woman's  Movement        39 

pational  facilities,  of  others  for  a  wider  domestic 
horizon,  and  yet  others  for  the  more  or  less  com- 
plete abandonment  of  home  life  and  the  subordi- 
nation or  even  rejection  of  maternal  claims  :  these 
desires  are  but  superficial  expressions  of  a  deeper 
feeling  ;  and  until  we  understand  this  governing 
feeling  we  cannot  legislate  without  the  gravest 
possibilities  of  disaster.  When  the  young  girl  mind 
opens  out  into  the  womanly,  why  does  a  feeling  of 
discontent  with  womanliness  and  its  opportunities 
tend  to  arise  ?  Is  this  discontent  biological  or 
educational,  healthy  or  unhealthy  ?  Until  we  can 
answer  these  preliminary  inquiries  the  time  will  not 
have  arrived  for  legislative  action. 

Appendix  Note 

It  would  be  easy  to  demonstrate  the  general  acceptance  of  most 
of  these  statements  from  competent  novelists  and  others  who  have 
really  described  woman  from  the  point  of  view  of  her  womanly 
individuality  ;  two  examples,  however,  must  suffice. 

Olive  Schreiner,1  in  the  "Story  of  an  African  Farm,"  through 
the  words  of  the  chief  character  of  the  story — a  young  woman 
with  modern  aspirations — gives  acceptance  to  almost  all  the  points 
that  these  two  writers  emphasise.  As  Laura  Hansson  points  out 
that  "  Woman  has  no  destiny  apart  from  man,"  so  Olive  Schreiner 
makes  this  girl,  of  exceptional  mental  calibre  and  will  but  who  is 
also  intensely  womanly,  express  herself  thus  : 

"  I  will  do  nothing  good  for  myself,  nothing  for  the  world,  till 
someone  wakes  me.  I  am  asleep,  swathed,  shut  up  in  self;  till  I 
have  been  delivered,  I  will  deliver  no  one." 

Of  woman's  loneliness  apart  from  man  and  of  her  need  of  pro- 
tection she  insists  constantly,  and  after  showing  the  view  of  the 
vulgar  cruder  woman  as  a  contrast  to  this  higher  type  of  woman- 
hood, she  makes  her  thus  express  herself  about  the  self-weariness 

1  I  am  quite  aware  of  her  later  writings,  but  these  are  probably  less 
expressions  of  herself  than  her  earlier  and  more  autobiographical  approach. 


40  The  Nature  of  Woman 

that  Laura  Hansson  insists  upon  as  being  part  of  the  lack  of  aim 
existing  in  womanhood. 

"  I  am  so  weary  of  myself.  It  is  eating  my  soul  to  its  core — 
self,  self,  self!  I  cannot  bear  this  life!  I  cannot  breathe,  I  can- 
not live !  Will  nothing  free  me  from  myself — I  want  to  live !  I 
want  something  great  and  pure  to  lift  me  to  itself!  .  .  .  "  and  as 
an  instance  of  the  intensity  of  the  modern  womanly  woman's  love, 
"  One  day  I  shall  love  something  utterly,  and  then  I  shall  be  better." 

Of  the  sex  consciousness  of  the  woman  as  woman  and  of  her 
realisation  of  woman's  individuality  she  says :  "  If  women  were  the 
inhabitants  of  Jupiter,  of  whom  you  happened  to  hear  something, 
you  would  pore  over  us  and  our  condition  night  and  day." 

And  as  a  parallel  to  Laura  Hansson's  position  that  the  newer 
type  of  womanhood  wishes  for  a  mental  maturity  as  well  as  a 
physical  before  marrying,  she  makes  this  same  girl  say  to  a  man 
who  confesses  to  his  physical  love  of  her  individuality  : 

"  You  call  into  activity  one  part  of  my  nature ;  there  is  a 
higher  part  that  you  know  nothing  of,  that  you  never  touch." 

I  am  tempted  to  allude  to  George  Gissing  in  greater  detail,  but 
his  wonderful  intuitive  realisation  of  the  higher  woman's  nature 
would  take  me  too  far  afield. 

"  Thyrsa,"  a  story  that  is  really  a  modern  love  epic  too  beauti- 
ful to  be  analysed  and  dissected,  is  a  wonderful  study  of  a  woman's 
life,  of  her  passivity  till  love  is  born,  of  its  intensity  when  it  is 
born,  and  the  incorporation  of  the  woman's  destiny  in  that  of  the 
man's  that  she  is  drawn  to. 

That  Gissing  also,  perhaps  unconsciously,  realised  that  the 
higher  type  of  woman  responds  most  perfectly  to  the  gentleness 
that  comes  of  true  manly  strength,  and  that  a  less  perfect  woman  is 
fascinated  by  a  strength  that  is  tyrannously  expressed,  is  also  seen 
from  such  books  as  "  The  Nether  World "  and  "  The  Emanci- 
pated," and  is  a  fact  of  no  little  importance  in  this  connection. 

"  The  Odd  Women  "  is  really  a  work  that  vividly  portrays  the 
conclusion  that  Laura  Hansson  in  "Modern  Women"  insists 
upon,  the  sad  fate  of  the  refined  unmarried  wage-earning  woman 
in  modern  times.  And  in  George  Meredith  we  have  the  same 
need  of  man's  understanding  and  assisting  women  expressed  in  his 
closing  words  of  Rhoda  Fleming,  "  Help  poor  Girls." 

In  fact,  from  these  and  other  writers  it  would  be  possible, 
guided  by  modern  science,  to  construct  a  true  psychology  of 
womanhood  that  would  be  capable  of  universal  acceptance. 


The  Woman's  Movement        41 

What  is  indeed  one  of  the  most  remarkable  facts  of  the  woman's 
social  movement  is  its  general  disregard  of  sex  mentality.  Fictional, 
poetic,  and  scientific  literatures  are  full  of  references  to  mental 
differences  of  sex,  and  when  a  writer's  thoughts  are  not  biassed  by 
the  modern  economic  attitude  the  belief,  resting  as  it  does  on 
various,  everyday  facts,  that  a  woman's  mind  and  a  man's  are 
unlike  asserts  itself  naturally  and  inevitably.  This  is  nowhere 
more  noticeable  than  in  works  on  religion.  James  Martineau,  for 
instance,  in  his  first  volume  of  "  Hours  of  Thought,"  has,  in 
addition  to  many  other  allusions  describing  the  feminine  and  the 
masculine  attitudes  of  faith,  a  sermon  ("  Neither  Man  nor  Woman 
in  Christ  Jesus")  devoted  almost  entirely  to  this  one  point,  and  in 
agreement  with  Laura  Hansson  and  the  review  writer  already 
quoted,  he  gives  intense  passive  susceptibility  and  repose  as  woman's 
chief  characteristics.1  And  Francis  William  Newman,  in  his  work. 
"  The  Soul,"  has  many  similar  ideas.  One  is,  in  fact,  embarrassed 
by  the  amount  and  agreement  of  opinion  on  this  one  point,  which 
economic  writers  alone  fail  to  realise,  while  even  among  them  the 
better  informed  are  at  last  awaking  to  the  importance  of  the  bio- 
logical point  of  view,  bat  at  present  it  is  still  not  understood  that 
the  differences  of  sex  must  ultimately  be  the  basis  upon  which  the 
structure  of  modern  education  and  industry  must  rest. 

1  Women  hymn-writers  confirm  this. 


The  American  development  of  the  Woman's  Movement  is 
treated  in  Chapter  III.  The  single  aspect  of  life  and  individual 
applications  of  this  thought  will  be  treated  in  another  volume,  and 
therefore  hasty  conclusions  should  not  be  drawn. 


Chapter  II 

The  Man's  Movement 

FT  is  assumed,  when  we  speak  of  a  woman's 
movement  as  if  it  were  a  distinctive  movement 
characteristic  of  the  female  sex,  that  woman  is  dis- 
contented, and  that  man  is  contented,  and  so 
obsessed  are  we  all  by  ideas  that,  quite  forgetful  of 
the  obvious  discontent  of  man,  and  quite  forgetful 
of  the  really  happy  relationships  of  the  majority  of 
men  with  the  majority  of  women,  we  assume, 
what  is  not  the  fact,  that  there  is  a  woman's  move- 
ment based  upon  woman's  unhappiness  and  man's 
happiness,  and  that  somehow  an  adjustment  of  the 
rights  and  duties  of  the  sexes  is  the  real  question  at 
issue.  Of  course,  this  idea,  as  every  man  and  woman 
of  experience  knows,  is  an  utterly  false  one.  A 
woman,  on  an  average,  lives  longer  than  a  man, 
partly,  no  doubt,  because  her  life  is  a  more  moderate 
and  balanced  one  than  the  man's ;  but  partly,  also, 
because  the  strain  of  a  man's  work  tells  more 
heavily  upon  him  than  the  woman's,  including 
childbirth  cares,  tells  upon  her ;  and  as  a  fact,  the 
larger  proportion  of  mature  men  and  women  are 
married,  and,  in  the  main,  happily  married,  and 
meet  daily  in  friendly  intercourse,  and  it  is  only 
the  exceptional  instances  that  are  not.  Further, 

42 


The  Man's  Movement  43 

the  striking  fact  of  business  relations,  where  men 
and  women  are  employed  together,  and  the  women 
are  as  a  class  under-selling  the  men,  is  the  amicable 
relationships  which  are  preserved ;  so  far  from  there 
being  sex  antagonisms,  the  noticeable  reality  is  this, 
that  sex  friendliness  as  a  general  rule  overcomes  the 
competitive  unfriendliness  that  would  have  resulted 
had  men  underbid  in  the  wage  market  their  fellow- 
men.  That  employers,  whether  men  or  women,  can 
and  do  induce  women  to  take  less  than  men  is 
another  aspect  of  the  problem  dependent  probably 
upon  woman's  biological  nature ;  but  the  friendli- 
ness of  the  man  employee  with  the  woman  employee 
is  very  remarkable,  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  how  all 
but  universally  the  woman  does  take  lower  wages 
for  similar  work  than  the  man.1  The  plain  actuality, 
freed  from  misrepresentative  propagandism,  is  that 
woman  is  discontented,  and  that  her  discontent  is 
not  primarily  a  sex  discontent  at  all,  and  the 
discontent  of  the  man  is  just  as  noticeable  and 
very  similar  in  many  of  its  aspects  to  that  of  the 
woman. 

Official  reports  state  that  the  worker  is  less  satisfied 
with  his  work  than  formerly,  that  he  throws  down 
his  tools  at  the  first  stroke  of  the  hour  when  his  em- 
ployment technically  ceases.  Is  there  a  single  nail  to 
drive  home  to  complete  his  labour,  it  must  wait.  A 
single  button  to  be  added  to  a  garment,  it  must  be 
completed  next  day.  A  single  brick  to  give  finish  to 
the  worker's  day's  labour,  yet  it  must  be  left  un- 
finished. There  is,  so  it  is  said,  no  pride  in  the  work 
for  its  own  sake,  as  was  formerly  shown.  As  the 

1  The  cotton  industry  is,  of  course,  an  exception  to  this. 


44  The  Nature  of  Woman 

woman  is  accused  of  avoiding  her  home  duties,  of 
not  feeding  her  child  naturally,  of  taking  it  out  late 
at  night  for  her  own  pleasure,  of  buying  tinned 
foods,  and  food  badly  cooked  at  some  fish  or 
sausage  shop,  for  her  husband's  and  children's 
meals,  so  the  man  is  said  to  be  passing  away  from 
his  industrial  ideals,  and  both  are  said  to  be  less 
competent  than  formerly. 

And  the  employee,  no  doubt,  has  a  case  as  strong 
against  the  employer  as  the  employer  against  the 
employed  ;  but  the  fact  to  notice  here  is  that  the 
dissatisfaction  is  not  a  sex  dissatisfaction,  is  not  a 
woman's  dissatisfaction  or  movement,  or  a  man's, 
but  exists  in  both  sexes,  and  is,  therefore,  probably 
not  due  to  a  sex  cause  at  all. 

Social  reformers  note  this  failure  of  the  man,  and 
treat  of  it  despairingly.  Carlyle  thought  we  were 
ceasing  to  be  men  ;  Morris  that  machinery  is  de- 
stroying the  art  of  life,  and  that,  because  of  this, 
work  is  ceasing  to  be  a  pleasure  ;  Ruskin  that  we 
are  ceasing  to  feel  the  moral  claims  of  our  callings, 
yet  none  really  analyse  this  feeling  of  discontent 
and  trace  it  to  its  cause. 

Assumptions  are  made  by  many  writers  that  will 
not  bear  serious  examination.  Is  man  more  me- 
chanical and  less  of  a  man  than  formerly  ?  He  is 
certainly  less  brutal  and  more  humane.  Even  where 
it  is  claimed  that  work  is  becoming  more  mono- 
tonous, and  this  with  some  truth,  yet  the  interest 
of  the  large  factory  life,  associated  with  it,  and  the 
variety  of  amusements  for  leisure,  and  the  shorter 
hours  of  labour,  on  the  whole  probably  make  for  a 
brighter  life  than  formerly,  and  one  that  is  less 


The  Man's  Movement  45 

rather  than  more  uneventful.  It  is  exceedingly 
doubtful  if  any  material  aspect  of  existence  is  worse 
now  than  formerly,  for,  on  the  whole,  the  material 
well-being  of  employer  and  employed  has  steadily 
improved,  yet  the  discontent  has  increased. 

Like  the  woman's  movement,  the  man's  can  be 
traced  back  to  mediaeval  times,  to  John  Ball  and 
similar  types  of  men,  who  expressed  dissatisfaction 
with  the  lot  of  the  average  man,  and,  like  the  modern 
woman's  movement,  it  grew  rapidly  from  the  be- 
ginning of  last  century.  It  is,  however,  more 
general  than  the  emancipation  movement  for 
women,  in  that  it  exists  in  all  countries  where 
thinking  men  and  women  are  to  be  found  :  in  Britain 
and  the  colonies,  the  United  States,  France, 
Germany,  Russia. 

It  is  not  physical  discontent. 

The  misery  of  the  bodily  wants  of  man  has  de- 
clined in  all  Anglo-Saxon  and  modern  European 
countries,  and  in  nearly  every  part  of  the  more 
civilised  portions  of  the  world,  yet  this  feeling  has 
grown. 

It  is  not  due  to  increase  of  machinery  nor  to  the  loss 
of  the  personal  influence  in  life. 

For  both  mechanical  and  impersonal  influences  are 
greater  in  the  town  than  the  country,  yet  it  is  the 
country  more  than  the  town  that  breeds  this  feeling. 

It  is  not  due  to  lack  of  educational  opportunity. 

For  the  discontent  exists  most  often  in  those 
classes  of  the  nation,  rich  and  poor  alike,  who  have 
least  desire  for  education,  and  lectures  and  good 
cheap  literature  are  now  in  most  modern  countries 
within  the  reach  of  all. 


46  The  Nature  of  Woman 

The  man's  discontent  and  the  woman's  are  both 
alike  without  a  satisfactory  explanation.  Some 
cause,  perhaps  behind  both  and  not  a  sexual  one, 
must  be  sought  for  what  is  thus  openly  revealed. 


Chapter  III 

The  Confusion  of  Thought  of  our  Times 

T  WISH  in  this  chapter,  as  I  have  to  be  unavoid- 
ably  critical,  to  consider  certain  statements 
quite  apart  from  the  question  of  authorship  ;  but  at 
the  same  time  I  shall  try  to  use  only  those  references 
that  may  be  taken  as  being  representative  of  wide- 
spread belief.  I  have,  however,  full  authorities  in 
my  possession. 

The  Woman  of  the  Past  as  she  is  Stated  to 
have  been  as  Compared  with  the  Woman 
of  To-day 

I.  "...  Some  of  us,  perhaps,  can  remember  a  time 
when  girls  in  the  schoolroom  were  brought  up  upon 
text-books,  in  question  and  answer,  that  had  to  be 
learned  by  rote,  such  as  '  Magnall's  Questions '  and 
'  Brewer's  Guide  to  Science,'  when  Miss  Corner's 
Histories  were  in  fashion,  when  compound  division 
was  their  extreme  limit  of  arithmetic,  and  Euclid 
and  algebra  and  Latin,  and  much  more  Greek,  and 
even  German,  were  not  taught  by  governesses  or 
included  in  school  curricula.  Both  in  limitation  of 
range  and  want  of  thoroughness,  the  intellectual 
education  of  girls  was  sadly  to  seek." 

47 


48  The  Nature  of  Woman 

This  passage  by  a  principal  of  an  important  ladies' 
college,  though  not  intended  to  be  disingenuous, 
could  hardly  be  more  so  had  it  been  a  skilled,  con- 
scious, deliberate  attempt  at  misrepresentation. 

1.  School  text-books,  whether  for  girls  or  boys,  at 
this  period  were  very  defective ;    "  Magnall's  Ques- 
tions "  were  not  worse  than  many  text-books  read 
by  boys. 

2.  While  it  is  pointed  out  that  girls  did  not  learn 
Euclid,  algebra,  Latin,  Greek,  and  German,  the 
domestic  training  which  they  received,  and,/0r  the 
time,  a  not-to-be-despised  training  in  music  and  art, 
is  omitted.    Thus  the  inferiority  of  the  woman's  side 
seems  self-evident,  when,  as  a  fact,  it  was  rather  a 
different  system  of  education  than  an  inferior  one 
which  was  practised. 

Ruskin  and  many  well-informed  biologists  are  of 
opinion  that  in  this  respect  the  older  thought  was 
right  for  its  time. 
II.     "  The  Bad  Old  Days." 

"  The  women  of  our  grandmother's  days  had  few 
liberties  and  fewer  rights.  Their  property  and  their 
persons  belonged  to  their  male  relations,  and  they 
had  little  or  no  control  over  either.  A  father  could 
dispose  ot  his  children,  even  after  his  death,  without 
the  slightest  regard  to  the  wishes  of  the  mother.  A 
man  might  legally  beat  his  wife,  and  many  men  did 
so.  Wives  were  put  up  for  auction,  and  sold  to  the 
highest  bidder.  There  were  instances,  though 
happily  they  had  become  rare,  of  the  employment 
by  husbands  of  ducking-stools,  gossip-bridles,  public 
whipping-posts,  and  stocks.  Of  social  life  women 
had  none.  Their  outgoings  were  restricted  to  visits 


Confusion  of  Thought  of  our  Times  49 

to  church  on  holy  days,  and  occasional  rare  journeys 
to  market,  wedding-feast,  or  death-bed.  Such 
company  as  the  master  of  the  house  permitted  to 
cross  its  threshold  was  his  company.  It  was  the 
wife's  duty  to  serve  guests  and  then  to  depart  ;  they 
were  but  added  burdens  in  her  dreary,  colourless 
life." 

This  statement,  made  by  one  of  the  late  leaders  of 
the  present  suffrage  movement,  scarcely  needs  its 
fallacies  pointed  out. 

Had  such  a  state  of  suppression  ever  existed  as  a 
world,  fact,  that  fact  alone  would  have  proved  the 
inferiority  of  woman,  but  the  assertions  are  not 
accurate. 

We  are  told  that  women  of  our  grandmothers' 
days,  that  is  to  say  from  1825  to  1860,  had  no  social 
life,  were  sold  at  auction,  were  frequently  beaten, 
had  no  friends  of  their  own,  and  there  were  in- 
stances of  gossip-bridles  and  ducking-stools  and 
public  whipping-posts  being  used.  Not  one  of 
these  practices  was  prevalent  or  existed  at  all  in  our 
grandmothers'  days.  They  belong  to  medixval 
times,  when  the  treatment  of  men  was  even  rougher 
than  that  of  women.  There  was  one  sale  of  a  wife, 
a  semi-humorous  sale,  in  quite  the  early  part  of  last 
century,  which  caused  an  obsolete  law  to  be  repealed  ; 
as  there  was  an  obsolete  law  of  trial  by  combat  for 
men  which  had  to  be  repealed  nearly  the  same^time. 

Woman's  lack  of  property  and  of  rights  to  her 
children,  and  other  like  defects,  existed  in  our  grand- 
mothers' days  as  laws,  and  at  times  were  tyrannous 
laws,  but  as  marriage  settlements  and  other  legal 
contrivances  proved,  these  were  frequently  evaded. 


50  The  Nature  of  Woman 

A  picture  such  as  this  can  only  be  dismissed  from 
serious  controversy,  yet  there  are  nine  similar  para- 
graphs in  the  article,  and  many  women's  thoughts 
are  fashioned  on  such  material. 

Here  is  another  extract  : 

"  Yet  to-day,  with  liberty  and  training,  women 
are  proving  their  intellectual  capacity  ;  and  their 
physical  development  is  a  joy  to  the  eye  of  the  be- 
holder." 

This  reference  to  improvement  in  woman's  phy- 
sique is  one  that  is  frequently  made  without,  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  one  small  shred  of  fact  to  support 
it.  There  are  no  large  series  of  measurements  of  the 
bodies  of  men  or  women  before  1880,  no  measure- 
ments of  any  kind  comparing  men  and  women  to- 
gether, and  no  records  of  the  relative  health  of  men 
and  women  in  occupational  life.  How  such  com- 
parisons as  to  the  relative  health  of  the  woman  of 
to-day  as  compared  with  the  woman  of  the  past  have 
been  framed,  except  from  a  few  writers  of  fiction,  it 
is  hard  to  surmise. 

It  would  be  easy  to  quote  worse  examples  of  in- 
competence, but  I  do  not  wish  to  make  the  picture 
too  severe. 

Such  obvious  bias,  and  such  a  seemingly  deliberate 
attempt  to  palpably  libel  the  woman  of  the  past, 
cannot  be  regarded  as  being  due  simply  to  ignorance 
of  social  history,  though  no  doubt  such  is  partly  the 
case  ;  nor  can  it  be  thought  of  as  a  mere  economic 
obsession,  nor  even  as  a  means  of  crude  propagandism, 
though  something  of  each  of  these  influences  can  be 
obviously  traced.  There  is  beyond  this  a  conscious 
or  unconscious  animosity  to  the  habits  of  the  lives 


Confusion  of  Thought  of  our  Times  51 

of  our  grandparents,  of  which  it  is  difficult  to  ex- 
plain the  cause.  At  times,  as  one  studies  this  aspect 
of  the  woman's  movement,  one  is  tempted  to  believe 
that  a  certain  type  of  woman  has  been  "  educated  " 
into  a  feeling  of  hostility  to  all  things  characteristic 
of  woman,  but  no  explanation  is  completely  satis- 
fying to  the  mind.  One  fact  is,  however,  certain, 
that  the  economic  demands  of  last  century  centred 
round  one  need,  that  of  cheap  labour,  and  that  a 
convenient  philosophy  of  life  arose,  which  disre- 
garded the  real  nature  of  womanhood  and  the 
healthy  requisites  of  girl  and  boy  life,  and  all  the 
world  over,  no  doubt  unconsciously,  encouraged  all 
ideas  that  suppressed  the  demands  of  womanhood 
and  parentage,  and  favoured  an  artificial  and  un- 
healthy life.  No  other  view  will  explain  the  rapid 
spread  of  neo-Malthusian  ideas,  the  rapid  disorgan- 
isation of  domestic  ideals,  and  the  rise  of  a  type  of 
woman  and  of  man  who  favour  factory  employment 
outside  the  home  for  married  women,  artificial 
feeding  of  infants,  creches,  boarding-schools  for 
quite  young  children,  and  who  favour  no  legis- 
lative restrictions  on  the  employment  and  for  the 
protection  of  women  and  children. 

The  Anti-Woman  and  Anti-Home  Policy  of 
some  Women  Writers 

The  really  serious  extent  to  which  this  thought 
has  become  prevalent  may  be  most  easily  seen  if 
some  attempt  is  made  to  co-ordinate  into  one  whole 
the  many  various  slipshod  theories  which  have  been 
formulated  to  attack  the  position  that  the  womanly 


52  The  Nature  of  Woman 

mind  and  body  are  unlike  the  manly  mind  and  body, 
and  need,  therefore,  different  but  complementary 
forms  of  activity. 

The  first  and  obvious  difficulty  that  confronts 
even  the  superficial  student  is  the  ascendancy  of 
man's  influence  in  society  ;  the  complete  absence  of 
first-rank  genius,  except  in  literature  and  acting,  in 
women  is  so  obvious,  and  has  been  so  manifest  for 
so  many  centuries,  that  some  explanation,  to  hide 
the  real  facts,  is  required.  Hence  have  grown  up  two 
curious  ideas,  both  originating  and  flourishing  mainly 
in  the  United  States  soil,  but  which  have  been 
transplanted  to  the  more  critical  European  climate  : 
the  one,  the  claim  that  woman  at  one  time  was  the 
dominating  influence  in  the  world,  and  the  other, 
which  supports  it,  that  early  man  had  his  industrial 
life  organised  by  woman.  These  two  ideas  form  the 
basis  of  a  contention  that  beyond  the  patriarchal  age 
was  a  matriarchal,  and  the  argument  one  is  invited 
to  draw  from  this  is  that  woman  must  recover  the 
lost  ground,  and  that  the  old  matriarchy  must  be 
revived.  But  a  few  facts  easily  dispose  of  both 
theory  and  argument. 

The  assumption  of  a  very  early  feminine  ascen- 
dancy has  no  comparative  evidence  to  support  it. 
If  early  man  had  been  dominated  by  woman,  one 
would  have  expected  that  other  related  animals, 
such  as  the  higher  apes,  would  show  evidence  of  the 
same  influence  ;  as  a  fact,  however,  over  the  whole 
mammalian  and  bird  development  of  life,  with  two 
small  exceptions  in  birds,  the  male  is  everywhere  the 
stronger  and  the  fighting  creature,  and  the  female 
the  more  passive  ;  and  one  has  to  turn  either  to  the 


Confusion  of  Thought  of  our  Times  53 

spider  or  a  parasitic  worm,  themselves  exceptions, 
for  support  in  the  animal  kingdom  for  this  matri- 
archal idea.  Truly  a  thin  thread  upon  which  to  try 
to  suspend  such  a  heavy  theory. 

In  early  man  there  is  one  support  to  this  assumption 
of  feminine  ascendancy  :  in  certain  instances  descent 
is  traced  through  the  female  rather  than  the  male 
line,  but  as  maternity  is  an  obvious  fact,  and 
paternity  one  that  is  much  less  certainly  recognisable, 
it  follows  that  maternal  descent  is  much  the  more 
likely  to  be  customary  under  early  human  life  con- 
ditions. 

The  status  of  woman  varies  extremely  widely 
under  all  social  conditions,  and  although  it  has  some 
relation  to  the  degree  of  civilisation  a  nation  attains 
to,  rising  with  national  evolution,  yet  no  certain 
conclusions  can  be  drawn.  The  Egyptians  treated 
women  less  freely  but  more  kindly  than  the  As- 
syrians, yet  the  Babylonians,  of  the  same  race  as  the 
Assyrians,  gave  to  their  women  citizens  great  licence. 
Sparta,  less  civilised  than  Athens,  was  yet  more  free 
in  its  treatment  of  women,  and  it  would  have  been 
difficult  to  conceive  of  an  emancipation  movement 
among  the  Spartan  women,  so  great  was  their 
liberty  as  compared  with  the  men,  though  both 
sexes  were  subordinated  to  the  state.  The  position 
of  Roman  women  is  often  quoted,  but  their  greatest 
period  of  licence  was  during  the  decline,  not  during 
the  rise,  of  Rome,  and  to-day  the  different  position 
of  women  in  Germany,  England,  and  the  United 
States  cannot,  upon  any  sane  estimate,  be  regarded 
as  measuring  the  standard  of  civilisation  of  these 
three  countries. 


54  The  Nature  of  Woman 

Even  among  savages  the  treatment  of  women  is 
extremely  various,  and  affords  no  satisfactory  basis 
for  any  sound  theory  of  national  culture. 

Finally,  it  is  not  true  to  assert  that  industrial  life 
was  organised  by  women  under  primitive  social  con- 
ditions, unless  important  qualifications  are  added, 
for  early  man  had  much  to  do  with  the  pastoral  side 
of  life  and  cattle-rearing,  and  the  specialisation  was 
one  of  sex-capacity — the  man  doing  the  fighting  and 
hunting  forms  of  labour  and  the  woman  the  more 
peaceful. 

There  is  thus  no  satisfactory  evidence  for  a  matri- 
archy, as  unquestionable  authorities  such  as  Wester- 
marck  have  pointed  out,  and  if  there  were  it  would 
tell  against  the  claims  of  womanhood,  for  in  that 
case  the  status  of  the  woman  would  have  declined 
with  advancing  social  evolution,  instead  of  having, 
in  some  measure,  advanced  with  it. 

The  second  practical  difficulty  that  the  de- 
womanising  emancipationists  had  to  face  was  the 
obvious  fact  that  woman  in  her  nature  is  different 
now  when  compared  with  the  man,  the  civilised 
woman  being  more  differentiated  from  the  man  than 
the  barbaric.  If,  therefore,  it  has  to  be  proved  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  "  as  a  female  mind,"  one  must 
assert  that  either  the  woman  of  to-day  is  "  over- 
sexed," whatever  such  an  unscientific  phrase  can 
mean,  and  that  the  barbaric  woman  is  the  ideal 
woman,  or  that  under  civilised  conditions  a  "  neuter" 
sex  is  becoming  manifested,  a  still  wilder  hypothesis, 
and  that  some  women  can  discard  their  womanhood. 

The  word  "  oversexed  "  has  no  scientific  meaning 
of  any  kind  behind  it,  it  is  one  of  those  pleasing 


Confusion  of  Thought  of  our  Times  55 

words  that  seems  to  suggest  something  until  it  is 
examined,  and  then  is  found  to  be  quite  unreal  and 
devoid  of  significance.  The  bodily  cause  of  womanly 
and  manly  types  depends  primarily  upon  the  activity 
of  certain  masculine  and  feminine  glands,  and  if 
such  an  oversexed  condition  ever  arose,  it  would  be 
a  state  of  actual  disease  that  would  need  medical 
treatment.  At  present  no  such  disease  is  known,  and 
if  it  were  it  could  have  no  direct  relation  to  the 
woman's  movement  except  in  so  far  as  something 
in  our  lives  had  affected  woman  hurtf ully.  An  over- 
sexed woman,  being  diseased,  could  not  work  until 
her  health  was  restored,  either  industrially  or  in  the 
home. 

The  neuter  sex  idea  is  even  cruder.  It  is  an  as- 
sumption that  in  man,  a  mammal,  having  a  mammal's 
complicated  organisation,  obeying  mammalian  laws 
as  to  number  of  offspring  born,  a  group  of  women 
and,  presumably,  men  might  arise  in  whom  the  call 
of  parentage  could  be  disregarded,  and  who  could  be 
compared  to  the  neuter  working  bees.  One  has  only 
to  point  out  one  fact  to  grasp  the  essential  absurdity 
of  this  contention.  The  worker  bee  is  recognisable 
as  being  different  from  the  queen  bee.  Where  are  the 
men  and  women  of  the  world  whose  bodily  form  as 
they  walk  up  and  down  the  streets  permits  us  to  assert 
that  they  belong  to  the  undomesticated  genus  ? 

Yet  upon  these  three  fallacies  of  the  matriarchate, 
the  oversexed,  and  the  neuter  types  of  women,  all 
three  of  which  logically  destroy  each  other,  as  well 
as  being  the  merest  grotesques  of  serious  thought, 
much  of  the  modern  woman's  movement  is  built  up. 

From  the  oversexed  idea  we  are  told  that  woman 


56  The  Nature  of  Woman 

is  too  much  in  the  home,  and  that  expectant 
motherhood  can  disregard  the  fact  of  unborn  life 
for  six  to  seven  months  after  its  beginnings ;  that 
the  woman  in  the  home  is  a  worse,  or,  as  some  would 
put  it,  not  a  better,  home-maker  than  the  factory 
woman  who  neglects  it,  and  that  the  state  control 
and  care  of  children  is  seriously  to  be  discussed  by 
the  side  of  genuine,  true,  and  worthy  motherhood. 
That  the  very  functional  disabilities  of  woman  that 
prepare  for  motherhood  are  expressions  of  disease, 
and  that  unmarried  and  married  women  must  be 
free  to  work  as  they  please  under  all  conditions,  and 
that  divorce — as  family  ties  are  slight — should  be 
easily  granted. 

The  neuter  sex  idea  has  as  yet  had  little  practical 
application,  but  it  should  form  the  basis  of  a  logical 
thought  about  co-education,  for  if  co-education 
means  what  its  name  implies,  it  assumes  that  the 
girl  and  boy  are  so  alike  in  bodily  and  mental  charac- 
teristics during  pubescence  and  adolescence  that 
they  can  receive  a  similar  education.  Even  on  the 
other  ground  of  different  kinds  of  education  for 
boys  and  girls  associated  together  in  the  same 
classroom,  co-associational,  not  co-educational,  we 
see  a  strange  disregard  for  the  consequences  of 
scientific  thought.  For  many  advocates  of  the  co- 
association  of  children,  and  the  co-association  of 
women  and  men  in  industrial  and  cultural  life- 
pursuits,  advocate  disassociational  practice  in  the 
home,  the  husband  and  wife  leading  a  dual  life, 
with  easy  divorce  laws,  so  that  permanent  co- 
association  of  the  married  man  and  woman  will  be 
difficult. 


Confusion  of  Thought  of  our  Times  57 

The  aim  in  all,  whether  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, is  to  dewomanise  the  woman  and  destroy 
her  real  inborn  individuality  of  body  and  mind. 

The  last  of  these  unscientific  assumptions  is  that  of 
"  economic  independence."  Sanely  treated  there  is 
probably  not  a  little  truth  in  the  idea  ;  a  woman  has 
a  right — whether  married  or  single — to  the  wages  of 
her  labour,  and  if  some  law  could  fix  this  right  in 
statute  form,  so  that  a  half  of  the  husband's  wages 
were  regarded  as  legally  belonging  to  the  wife,  I 
personally  should  have  no  objection  to  offer  ;  but  to 
believe  that  either  this  or  the  franchise  would  make 
any  serious  difference  to  woman's  domestic  position 
is  to  openly  disregard  the  teaching  of  fact  and 
reality. 

There  are  four  great  groups  of  citizens  in  the 
nation  :  the  unskilled  labourer,  the  skilled  artisan  or 
mechanic,  the  trader  or  shopkeeper,  and  the  pro- 
fessional worker.  If  economic  independence  of 
women  really  counted  in  married  life,  as  the  customs 
vary  so  widely  in  these  four  groups,  some  real  differ- 
ences in  the  happiness  of  married  women  should  be 
observable.  What  do  we  find  ? 

The  labourer  is  frequently  out  of  work,  and  apart 
from  his  periods  of  enforced  unemployment  is  im- 
provident, consequently,  with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
the  custom  is  for  the  wife  to  go  out  to  work,  and  the 
better  type  of  husband  brings  home  his  weekly  wages 
to  her  when  earning.  The  labourer's  wife  thus  earns 
enough  for  her  own  keep  and  sometimes  more,  and 
has  control  of  the  larger  part  of  her  husband's  earn- 
ings as  well ;  she  is  thus  not  only  economically 
independent,  but  economically  is  the  controlling 


58  The  Nature  of  Woman 

influence  in  married  life.  In  other  less  favourable 
cases  the  husband  earns  little  or  nothing,  and  the 
wife  is  the  sole  bread-winner,  and  the  husband  is 
economically  dependent  on  his  wife.  Any  man  or 
woman  of  real  experience  knows  that  the  treatment 
of  the  wife  will  have  practically  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  this  economic  relationship.  Push  the 
position  one  stage  further.  It  is  quite  frequent  that 
a  mother  or  father  or  both  are  dependent  on  a 
daughter  or  a  son.  It  will  then  almost  entirely 
depend  on  the  character  of  the  parent  and  the  child 
which  of  the  following  alternatives  will  be  mani- 
fested : 

Either  the  unselfish  child  will  be  sacrificed  to  a 
selfish  parent,  and  the  whole  of  the  weekly  wages 
will  be  absorbed  by  the  mother  or  father  who 
exacts  it ; 

Or  the  parent  will  be  treated  badly  at  home  or  sent 
to  the  workhouse  or  an  equivalent  accommodation 
outside  of  the  home ; 

Or,  as  more  commonly  happens,  the  parent  shares 
with  the  child,  and  there  is  mutual  understanding. 

(In  some  cases  the  parent  will  prefer  a  little  room 
or  rooms  of  his  or  her  own.) 

Among  the  labouring,  mechanic,  shopkeeping, 
and  professional  classes  alike  these  alternatives  dis- 
close no  relation  at  all,  as  far  as  I  can  discover,  to  the 
economic  position  of  the  child,  or,  within  limits, 
the  parent. 

There  are  parents  that  exact  from  their  children, 
and  children  from  their  parents,  and  this  state  of 
things  exists  in  rich  and  poor  and  all  classes  alike. 

According  to  the  economic  independence  theory 


Confusion  of  Thought  of  our  Times  59 

of  woman,  the  labourer's  wife  should  be  the  best 
treated  in  the  nation,  and  it  is  needless  to  point  out 
that  this  is  not  the  fact ;  and  there  ought  to  be  some 
relation  between  the  treatment  of  parent  and  child 
to  each  other,  varying  with  the  monetary  depen- 
dence and  independence  of  the  one  on  the  other. 
It  is  remarkable  how  seldom  this  is  the  case.  It  is 
almost  more  true  to  say,  though  this  is  not  a  general 
truth  either,  that  dependence  of  one  human  being 
on  another  makes  for  kindliness  of  treatment. 

But,  as  if  to  demonstrate  this  point  to  the  fullest 
degree,  we  see  in  the  mechanic  classes  generally 
(there  are  some  exceptions,  as  in  the  Lancashire 
cotton  industry)  the  woman  remaining  exclusively 
at  home,  the  husband  bringing  home  his  weekly 
wages  to  her,  and  the  wife  often  giving  him  back 
for  his  pocket-money  what  she  thinks  the  home  can 
afford  ;  and  there  is  no  happier  nor  better  class  in 
the  nation,  nor  happier  man  and  woman  than  the 
mechanic  and  his  wife. 

Finally,  the  larger  shopkeeper  and  the  pro- 
fessional man  keep  their  earnings,  make  the  wife  a 
housekeeping  allowance  and  a  dress  and  personal 
allowance,  and,  as  a  whole,  neither  the  shopkeeper's 
wife  nor  the  professional  man's  is  unhappy  at  the 
result. 

I  do  not  deny  that  there  may  be  something  to  be 
said  for  a  wife's  independent  economic  position,  but 
a  custom  which  is  so  various  (and  besides  class, 
national  differences  could  easily  be  shown)  has  quite 
obviously  little  or  no  relation  to  the  happiness  or  the 
unhappiness  of  the  majority  of  women.  The  status 
of  woman  in  regard  to  the  man  clearly  does  not 


60  The  Nature  of  Woman 

depend  upon  economic  financial  conditions,  but  upon 
character  reactions.  There  are  tyrannous  women 
and  tyrannous  men,  and  no  law  of  any  country  can 
override  Nature's  law  that  in  personal  domestic  re- 
lations of  women  with  women,  men  with  men,  and 
women  with  men,  it  is  character  reactions,  above 
everything  else,  that  count.  It  is  fortunate  for 
human  life  that  it  is  so,  for  the  financial  aspect  has 
more  than  enough  power  as  it  is. 

Here,  then,  is  a  strange  position,  which,  in  con- 
cluding this  present  chapter,  let  me  summarise. 
From  about  1 830  to  1 850  a  type  of  woman,  probably  a 
product  of  an  increasingly  dewomanised  educational 
system  and  of  an  economic  social  atmosphere  adverse 
to  human  needs,  began  to  arise,  who,  with  increasing 
vigour,  unreason,  and  unreality  has  spoken  increas- 
ingly contemptuously  of  the  home  and  of  the 
domestic  woman  of  the  past ;  she  has,  with  the  help 
of  men,  formulated  a  number  of  crude  and  un- 
supported theories,  such  as  the  unhealthiness  of  the 
domestic,  home  and  motherly  type  of  woman ; 
the  supremacy  of  woman  in  early  barbaric  life  ;  the 
oversexed  condition  of  the  woman  of  to-day,  and, 
when  it  is  convenient  to  urge  the  conflicting  hypo- 
thesis to  that  of  woman's  supremacy  in  the  past,  to 
refer  to  the  neuter  sex  at  the  present  time ;  when 
arguing  about  woman's  work  as  compared  with 
man's,  claiming  that  a  woman's  work  "  is  never 
done,"  and  at  other  times  that  so  much  work 
has  been  taken  out  of  the  home  that  a  woman  ought 
to  be  able  to  seek  employment  outside  it  as  well ; 
when  asking  for  such  a  reform  as  the  endowment 
of  motherhood,  claiming  that  no  work  is  higher  than 


Confusion  of  Thought  of  our  Times  61 

a  mother's,  and  that,  therefore,  it  ought  to  be  well 
paid,  invoking  the  fallacious  assumption  that  the 
quality  of  the  work  is,  or  ever  has  been,  in  relation 
to  money-payment,  will  yet  in  almost  the  same 
breath  advocate  the  abandonment  of  motherhood 
and  the  home  by  maternity  institutions,  creches, 
infant  schools,  and  boarding,  co-educational  sys- 
tems, and  a  system  of  marriage  that  would  abolish 
the  disgrace  of  divorce  and  lead  inevitably,  if  the 
nation  accepted  it,  to  a  lowered  parental  responsi- 
bility. 

For  a  natural,  healthy-minded  man  or  woman  to 
hold  such  illogical  views  no  explanation  but  that 
of  a  social  obsession  is  possible,  and  it  is  discoverable 
in  the  economic  demands  of  last  century,  which 
taught  woman,  and  to  some  extent  man,  to  believe 
that  woman  had  no  womanly  individuality  of  mind, 
that  mathematics,  Latin,  Greek,  German,  and  logic 
were  as  much  women's  subjects  as  men's ;  that  any- 
one could  make  and  keep  a  home  and  be  a  mother, 
and  that  a  lady  clerk's  calling  of  copying  out  dic- 
tated letters  was  intellectual  in  comparison  to  this ; 
that  a  woman's  gift  of  intuition  was  only  instinct, 
and  that  a  woman  movement  which  was  to  emanci- 
pate her  should  in  practice  make  her  deny  her  bodily 
and  mental  personality. 

What  have  woman's  and  man's  discontent  to  do 
with  this  attitude  of  mind  ? 


Chapter  IV 

Our  Great-grandparents'  Days 

T  ET  us  try,  avoiding  all  theories  and  discarding, 
except  for  illumination  of  information  we  are 
sure  of  from  other  sources,  all  writers  of  fiction, 
to  reach  something  of  the  real  life  of  the  beginning 
of  last  century,  the  days  of  our  great-grandparents, 
of  Waterloo  and  Napoleon  in  the  military  world, 
and  the  beginnings  of  steam  machinery  in  the  in- 
dustrial. No  railways  exist,  and  the  old  coaching 
days  are  in  full  swing  and  life. 

Over  England  are  spread  a  number  of  villages, 
a  certain  number  of  county,  market  towns  and 
seaside  towns — the  former  with  their  days  of  fairs 
and  buying  and  selling,  the  latter  with  local  fishing 
industries,  or,  if  large  enough,  with  ports  where 
fairly  large  sailing  vessels  go  out  to  various  parts  of 
the  world. 

How  does  life  to-day  compare  with  that  of  the 
past  ?  The  artist,  looking  at  the  aesthetic  side  of  the 
old-fashioned  life,  the  thatched  roofs  and  the  lath 
and  plaster  walls  of  soft  grey  and  stone  colours,  and 
little  lattice  windows  of  the  cottages,  and  the  unity 
of  the  village  with  its  church,  parsonage,  little, 
quaint,  prim,  severe  chapel  of  dissent,  its  smithy 
with  its  forge,  the  village  shop,  the  little  village 

62 


Our  Great-grandparents'  Days      63 

green,  and  the  picturesque  inns,  the  squire's  hall 
near  by,  and  the  farmsteads  of  the  county  farmers, 
sees  children  in  imagination  dancing  at  fairs  and 
curtseying  to  their  "  betters,"  civil  when  asked  a 
question,  and  the  folk  of  the  village  all  acquainted 
with  each  other,  thinks  of  these  days  with  a  sigh  of 
real  sadness,  and  says,  "  Times  have  moved  for  the 
worse ;  give  me  back  those  quiet,  meditative, 
beautiful  days." 

The  social  student,  especially  if  he  be  medically 
trained,  and  particularly  if  his  feeling  for  the  beauti- 
ful is  only  slight  and  his  knowledge  of  domestic 
habits  of  the  people  small,  sees  in  the  past  the  slow, 
unclean  old  days.  Slow  because  of  the  absence  of 
railways  and  motor-cars,  and  soon  flying  machines ; 
unclean  and  evil-smelling  because  of  bad  drainage 
and  water  supply,  of  village  and  farm  pools  that 
have  the  daily  drainage  of  cooking  and  washing 
waters  poured  into  them,  of  ditches  that  contain  old 
pots  and  pans  and  household  refuse,  and  harbour 
flies  and  disease,  of  clothes  that  are  seldom  changed, 
of  narrow,  airless  courts  and  alleys  in  towns  where, 
in  extreme  cases,  hands  can  be  shaken  from  upstairs 
windows,  and  of  small  windows  that  do  not  open, 
and  of  houses  with  a  stuffy,  stagnant  smell,  often 
smoky  from  wide  chimneys,  often  damp  from  earth 
floors,  and  tumble-down,  and  he  says,  "Times  have 
moved  for  the  better  ;  I  am  thankful  that  I  did  not 
live  then." 

The  artist  is  right  in  externals.  Life  was  beautiful 
because  it  could  not  be  otherwise.  No  advertise- 
ments disfigured  the  landscape,  because  no  ad- 
vertisements— as  trade  was  in  small  hands — would 


64  The  Nature  of  Woman 

have  paid.  No  corrugated  iron,  no  jerry-building 
in  rows  of  houses,  because  no  rows  of  houses  were 
necessary.  But  for  all  that  life  was  coarser  in  those 
days  than  it  is  now  ;  there  was  no  aesthetic  sense  of 
the  beautiful  then  any  more  than  in  modern  iso- 
lated country  villages.  Children  were  often  in  rags, 
mostly  untidy,  families  frequently  lived  in  one  room, 
and  shared  their  lodgings  sometimes  with  other 
families,  and  with  dogs,  cats  and  other  animals,  as 
Irish  peasantry  still  do.  Hours  of  work  were  long 
and  monotonous,  relieved  by  gossip.  The  squire 
was  a  despotic,  often  irritable  man  ;  the  parson  was 
patronising,  and  the  children  who  curtseyed  had 
another  secret  thought  not  so  pleasing,  known  only 
to  themselves  and  their  kith  and  kin,  but  no  doubt 
shrewdly  suspected  by  the  gentry.  Women,  as  now, 
often  neglected  their  children,  and  in  both  sexes  there 
was  both  swearing  and  drinking,  and  heavy  meals  and 
animal  life,  as  old  books  on  diet  and  cooking  prove. 
Brawls  and  fights,  animal  and  human,  public  and 
domestic,  were  frequent.  Manners  were  vulgar  in 
the  extreme,  and  open  greed  was  often  displayed. 
The  artist  might  be  pleased  with  this  life  of  a  village 
or  a  town — strong  smelling,  often  animal  and  brutal, 
but  at  times,  when  dancing  and  joy  was  the  mood, 
sociable  and  picturesque,  though  rough  with  good- 
natured  horseplay — yet  it  is  not  true  to  say  that  in 
these  things  times  have  altered  for  the  worse. 

But  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  hygienic  social 
student  is  wrong  when  he  thinks  times  have  altered 
for  the  better  and  is  thankful  he  did  not  live  in 
them.  He  is  wrong  in  two  ways  :  the  absence  of  a 
life-purpose  to-day  as  an  ideal  which  the  past  had 


Our  Great-grandparents'  Days      65 

as  an  ideal,  though  it  seldom  realised  it,  but  was, 
nevertheless,  steadied  by  it ;  and  the  absence  of 
personal  associations  which  the  past  of  our  great- 
grandfathers firmly  possessed.  The  village  church 
and  the  village  chapel  were  real  centres  of  life,  and 
they  were  small  enough  for  everyone  in  them  to  be 
known.  No  great  evolutional  awakening  had  stirred 
the  people,  and  the  Bible  was  believed  as  The  Book 
of  God.  We  may  think  the  old  faiths  crude,  we  may 
know  that  many  did  not  follow  any  of  them  ;  but 
before  all  alike  was  the  fear  of  God  as  a  background, 
a  fear  of  God  that  in  the  religious  came  from  the 
love  and  acknowledgment  of  His  power,  and  in  the 
irreligious  a  fear  only  of  a  possible  punishment. 
There  is  no  faith  to-day  that  centres  and  holds  the 
people  and  is  adapted  to  its  age  as  the  early  part  of 
last  century's  was  to  its  own  period.  This  is,  of 
course,  common  knowledge,  but  its  social  significance 
as  a  factor  in  a  man's  or  woman's  general  satisfaction 
or  dissatisfaction  with  life  is  constantly  overlooked. 
In  this  sense  our  rudderless  age,  with  its  rudderless 
individual  men  and  women  who  look  upon  marriage 
as  a  social,  not  a  religious,  ceremony,  upon  death 
with  material  eyes,  upon  birth  as  a  curiosity  of 
knowledge,  not  a  wonder  of  existence,  in  this  sense, 
though  we  cannot  go  back,  we  may  well  sigh  for  the 
light  of  the  old  times  that  gave  a  faith,  however 
badly  followed  in  practical  life,  to  be  looked  up  to 
as  an  ideal. 

Could  you  go  back  in  reality  and  step  across  your 
great-grandfather's  door,  and  see  him  and  his 
wife  and  children  living  their  every-day  life  what 
would  probably  strike  you  least  would  be  the 


66  The  Nature  of  Woman 

picturesque  side  of  existence ;  the  nearly  complete 
absence  of  a  real  spirit  of  learning  or  desire  for 
knowledge,  except  in  a  few  homes ;  the  foul  smells, 
the  dirt,  the  untidiness ;  all  these  would  be  subor- 
dinate and  soon  lost  to  your  consciousness  and 
something  else  would  loom  larger  and  larger  in 
your  mind  the  longer  you  stayed  and  yet  kept  the 
memory  of  our  present  age  with  you. 

Around  you  everywhere  would  be  human  associa- 
tions ;  the  husband  would  be  at  work  either  in  or  just 
outside  his  home,  and  running  in  sometimes  for  a 
chat  with  his  wife.  The  house  itself,  out  of  which 
the  children  ran  and  round  which  they  played,  for 
very  probably  they  would  be  left  untaught,  or  be 
taught  for  an  hour  or  two  in  a  dame-school  or  by 
a  governess  or  maiden  aunt,  according  to  social 
position,  round  this  house  would  centre  personal 
human  life,  rough,  it  is  true,  but  living,  constant, 
vital.  The  house  where  one  parent  was  born  in,  and 
perhaps  one  of  his  parents  also,  an  old  clock,  perchance 
a  grandfather  clock,  perhaps  more  than  one,  real 
heirlooms,  a  family  Bible  on  a  table  or  a  shelf,  large, 
leather-bound,  with  the  family  record  for  genera- 
tions, old  arm-chairs  that  ancestors  had  sat  in,  and 
as  they  were  well  upholstered,  still  shaped  and  im- 
pressed by  their  bodily  presence  ;  tea-cosies  that 
belonged  to  mothers  now  long  dead,  old  family 
china,  oak  chests,  tables,  even  clothes  that  someone 
in  your  family  had  worn,  and  jewellery  ;  and  in  the 
little  garden  trees  and  flowers  that  somebody  once 
connected  with  you  had  planted,  looked  at,  cared 
for,  and  admired. 

The  parson  or  the  minister,  an  old  or  a  younger 


Our  Great-grandparents'  Days      67 

man,  would  know  the  family  actually  from  its 
youth  up,  or  by  report  that  would  one  day  be 
actuality,  and  would  be,  if  not  a  friend,  an  habitue. 
The  family  doctor  would  be  the  same,  a  real  family 
doctor,  foolish  or  wise  as  he  had  profited  or  not  by 
experience.  Even  the  schoolmaster,  the  shop- 
keeper, one's  neighbours,  friends  or  foes,  would  have 
this  old  familiar  associational  aspect.  Art  in  the 
real  sense  of  a  conscious  combination  of  har- 
monious colours  and  forms  would  hardly  exist, 
but  there  was  the  mellowing  of  age,  and  everywhere 
conversation  would  have  this  strange  personal 
associational  note  of  human  beings  in  contact  with 
human  beings,  perhaps  disputing  or  roughly  quarrel- 
ling, perhaps  in  rough  friendliness,  but  human, 
living,  vital.  And  into  this  life  comes  the  great  hand 
of  commerce  and  industry,  and  it  takes  away  one 
thing  only,  human  associations,  and  it  gives  in  ex- 
change, through  the  compulsion  of  science  and 
social  effort,  better  housing  and  hygiene,  higher 
wages,  more  and  better  and  worse  amusements, 
knowledge,  and  to  those  who  love  it  the  thought  of 
progress ;  but  the  home  is  broken  up,  men  and 
women  travel  and  often  do  not  return  ;  the  factory 
is  formed  and  home  industries  disappear,  and  the 
woman  is  solitary  in  her  house,  her  child  at  school, 
her  husband  "  at  the  works,"  the  family  doctor  has 
vanished,  and  a  young  practitioner  or  a  dispensary  or 
hospital  taken  his  place.  The  church  or  the  chapel 
is  in  a  town,  and  is  no  longer  small,  but  seats  a  thou- 
sand, whom  the  minister  or  the  clergyman  seldom 
visits,  and  then  but  for  a  few  moments.  Villages 
grow  to  towns,  streets  and  lanes  are  altered,  the 


68  The  Nature  of  Woman 

work  of  the  past  is  swept  away,  temporary  make- 
shifts take  its  place  ;  and  while  the  materials  of  life 
ready  for  usage  are  bettered,  the  spirit  of  life,  the 
human  touch,  the  human  record,  the  human 
memory  is  gone.  Man  stands  in  the  midst  of  his 
progress  dehumanised  by  the  loss  of  his  old  associa- 
tions, and  woman  in  her  home  dewomanised  be- 
cause what  gave  her  life  its  human  association  has 
fled. 

These  are  the  essential  differences  between  the 
past  of  our  great-grandfathers  and  our  lives  to-day ; 
the  life  purpose  of  religion,  the  associations  of  our 
fellows  are  gone,  and  in  their  place  material  benefits 
that  we  know  not  how  to  use  leave  us  men  and 
women  dissatisfied  and  discontented  ;  and  from  our 
economic  ordering  of  life  a  new  faith  and  a  new 
means  of  forming  human  associations  must  be 
wrung  by  a  religion  and  science  of  life  that  can 
shape  our  industry  to  higher  ends. 


Chapter  V 

Our  Great-grandparents  and  Ourselves 

TN  spite  of  public  opinion  to  the  contrary,  com- 
parisons are  not  odious ;  they  are,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  very  breath  of  science,  if  they  are  real, 
honest  comparisons,  made  without  animus  or  bias, 
and  if  well  done  are  as  illuminating  as  they  are  full 
of  interest.  And  the  great  task  before  biologist  and 
sociologist  alike,  and  it  will  be  a  great  task,  long  and 
arduous  in  its  persistency,  will  be  to  teach  human 
beings  to  see  human  applications  that  affect  them- 
selves drawn  by  kindly  hands,  and  learn  to  think  over 
them,  and  not  be  annoyed  at  some  home  truths 
being  told,  and  have  the  courage  to  feel  that  they 
are  home  truths,  and  learn  the  lessons  that  they 
bring. 

Some  comparisons  are  obvious  and  certain,  and 
admit  of  no  doubt  by  reasonable  minds;  as,  for 
example,  that  Germany  has  given  birth  to  the 
supreme  musicians,  such  as  Bach  and  Beethoven, 
and  that  Italy  is  the  only  country  that  can  compare 
with  her  in  her  musical  record.  Newton  and  Darwin 
are  as  certainly  supreme  in  science,  and  Harvey  and 
Roger  Bacon,  not  to  mention  lesser  lights,  clearly 
prove  that  in  the  widest  and  grandest  generalisations 
England,  for  some  reason,  is  the  foremost  scientific 

69 


70  The  Nature  of  Woman 

country.  Qualifications  have  to  be  made  in  all  such 
statements,  otherwise  they  are  unfair,  because  only 
half-truths.  Perhaps  one  might  assert,  for  instance  as 
regards  music,  that  Scotland  had  produced  some  of 
the  most  haunting  national  popular  songs,  and  that 
Purcell  in  England  deserved  a  place  in  musical 
history.  One  might  have  to  add  that,  while  for 
literary  refinement  the  South  of  England  was  in 
advance  of  the  North,  that  for  music  it  would  be 
scarcely  fair  to  assert  that  England  was  wholly  un- 
musical, in  view  of  the  exceptions  in  Wales  and  the 
North  of  England,  and  in  certain  districts  of  London. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  a  fact  that  Englishmen  have  to 
reckon  with,  that  their  taste  is  commonplace  in 
music,  and  that  they  have  produced  but  one  great 
musician,  and  he  not  one  of  the  most  supreme 
musical  minds.  We  can  console  ourselves  with 
Shakespeare,  with  John  Hampden,  or  Oliver  Crom- 
well, according  to  taste,  but  the  fact  of  our  musical 
poverty  remains  a  certain  and  unchallengeable  fact 
that  cannot  in  fairness  be  set  aside. 

In  science  also  our  pre-eminence,  like  Germany's 
in  music,  needs  qualifications.  The  German  people 
are  musical,  and  they  produce  great  geniuses,  but  we 
as  a  people  are  not  only  unscientific,  as  compared 
with  the  Germans  as  a  people,  but  we  are  not  proud 
even  of  the  scientists  that  belong  to  us.  It  is  useless 
to  be  angry  if  a  German  should  assert  this  truth  as 
an  offset  against  our  position,  for  it  is  a  simple  fact. 

Again,  France,  England,  and  Italy  might  be  com- 
pared for  literary  skill,  and  the  heaviness  of  German 
sentences  and  a  certain  lack  of  inspiration  would  be 
as  noticeable  here  as  her  skill  in  musical  handling, 


Our  Great-grandparents  &  Ourselves  71 

and  the  Germans  would  have  to  accept  this  as  part 
of  an  honest  study  of  their  national  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  philosophy  it  no  doubt  would  be 
possible  to  make  out  a  very  nearly  balanced  claim  for 
France,  Germany,  and  England,  as  compared  with 
each  other,  and  it  might  be  quite  legitimate  for  a 
citizen  in  either  of  these  nations  to  think  that  his 
country,  if  so  it  seemed  to  him  honestly,  had  the 
prior  claim  ;  the  two  Bacons  in  England,  Descartes 
in  France,  and  Kant  in  Germany,  are  all  so  eminent 
that  probably  no  final  decision  in  terms  of  greatness 
could  be  made.  Such  comparisons  are  not  odious, 
when  honourably  faced ;  they  strengthen  and 
stimulate  the  mind  and  teach  us  to  value  our  own 
and  other  countries  more,  the  more  frequently  we 
consider  and  make  them. 

It  is  so  when  honest  comparisons  are  made  be- 
tween different  earlier  generations  and  our  own, 
between  one  class  in  a  nation  and  another  class, 
between  man  and  woman  ;  and  the  reader  had  better 
close  this  book  if  he  cannot  go  thus  far  with  me,  for 
I  can  have  nothing  further  of  interest  to  say  to  him. 
These  comparisons  must  be  made  in  the  interests  of 
science.  The  one  criticism  that  may  be  justly 
raised  is  this  :  are  these  comparisons  made  in  the 
sincere,  kindly  interest  of  truth  or  are  they  not  ? 
If  they  are  they  must  be  accepted. 

The  picture  that  I  heavily  outlined  in  the  last 
chapter  was  too  hard,  too  full  of  strong  lights  and 
shades  to  be  really  accurate,  and  yet  I  think  it  ex- 
pressed the  essential  truths.  But  there  are  very  im- 
portant minor  ones  that  I  omitted.  Writing  quite 
broadly,  it  would,  I  think,  be  found  that  beyond  the 


72  The  Nature  of  Woman 

charm  of  human  associations,  beyond  the  satisfying 
calm  of  a  pervading  religious  faith,  something  which 
could  be  expressed  by  no  other  word  than  homeli- 
ness would  be  apparent  as  contrasted  with  ourselves 
to-day,  and  I  fancy,  though  this  I  am  less  certain  of, 
that  the  charm  of  sex,  of  manliness  and  of  womanli- 
ness, would  be  far  greater  than  is  apparent  at  the 
present  time,  and  in  the  better  and  less  harsh  homes 
the  charm  of  childhood  greater,  perhaps,  than  at  any 
other  period  in  the  world's  history. 

Probably  the  women  are  more  beautiful  and  more 
natural  to-day  and  more  learned,  but  I  fancy  that 
Taine  and  other  students  are  right  in  thinking 
that  the  man  was  more  manly  in  those  times 
and  the  woman  more  womanly  ;  life,  while  it  was 
at  times  rather  insistent  on  mannerisms  rather  than 
manners,  was  none  the  less  more  spontaneous, 
fresher,  more  holding  or  possessing. 

General  inequalities  of  character  were  certainly 
more  marked,  because  life  was  less  drilled,  literally 
less  schooled,  except  in  the  school  of  nature,  less 
policed,  as  it  were,  up  to  and  down  to  a  certain 
standard,  so  that  the  heights  and  depths  of  character 
were  greater.  The  levelling  up  and  down  has 
affected  harmfully  men  more  than  women  ;  it  has 
created  a  poor-fibred,  ease-loving  man,  who  might 
be  wrongly  spoken  of  as  effeminate,  wrongly  because 
an  effeminate  man  is  not  feminine,  and  more  cor- 
rectly as  emasculate,  who  takes  few  risks  in  life  and 
favours  safe  positions,  and  at  the  commencement  of  his 
life,  with  the  world  before  him  and  prospects  open- 
ing out,  will  ask,  if  a  mechanic,  whether  it  is  wise  to 
marry  on  £2  or  even  .£3  a  week  ;  or  if  a  professional 


Our  Great-grandparents  &  Ourselves  73 

man,  may  even  hesitate  at  a  yearly  income  of  ^500. 
I  am  not  defending  foolish  daring  ;  but  the  type  of 
man  that  a  woman  loves,  and  that  makes  a  country 
great  in  the  world's  history,  is  that  one  who  asks 
his  wife  to  share  his  hardships  with  him,  who 
softens  them  for  her,  but  expects  her  to  share,  who 
is  rightly  confident  in  his  strength,  and  who,  taking 
up  his  own  life  purpose,  shapes  out  a  course  for  him- 
self and  thus  learns  the  worth  of  existence.  I  am 
not  sure  that  this  absence  of  manliness  in  our- 
selves has  not  done  more  to  favour  dissatisfaction 
and  discontent  in  the  woman's  mind  than  can  be 
easily  estimated.  Nothing  so  wearies  a  woman  as 
tameness  of  life,  and  the  man  to-day  who  always 
acts,  if  a  worker,  through  his  union,  if  an  author  or 
publisher  through  his  society  or  union,  if  a  Member 
of  Parliament  through  his  party,  is  one  that  has  been 
so  drilled,  so  instructed  as  to  have  little  feeling 
of  self-responsibility,  self-reliance,  and  originality ; 
and,  like  the  pebbles  on  the  sea-beach,  has  been  so 
moulded  by  the  tidal  forces  of  his  time  as  to  be  little 
more  than  an  uninteresting  unit — one  pebble 
among  other  pebbles,  some  large  and  some  small,  but 
all  smooth  and  rounded — repeating  what  others 
repeat,  not  thinking  and  acting  for  himself.  Of 
course,  our  education  and  examination  systems  have 
done  much  to  favour  this  kind  of  mind,  and  in  the 
organisation  of  the  masses  of  men  and  women,  which 
was  last  century's  work,  this  was  to  some  extent 
temporarily  unavoidable  ;  but  for  this  century  our 
task  must  be  to  bring  back  the  individuality  and 
strength  of  manhood  into  our  citizens.  But  for  the 
moment  the  man  of  to-day,  while  he  is  better  in- 


74  The  Nature  of  Woman 

formed,  more  refined,  more  law-abiding,  is  also  less 
an  individual,  less  a  responsible  human  being,  and 
therefore  is  less  interesting  to  his  wife  as  a  companion 
as  well  as  to  himself.  The  organisation  of  life  during 
last  century,  by  our  education,  our  police,  our  trade 
unions,  and  unions  of  masters,  by  our  system  of 
limited  liability  in  company  formation,  and  in  a 
hundred  other  ways,  has  not  only  been  a  necessary 
step  in  civilisation  which  has  favoured  a  more 
obedient  citizen,  but  for  the  moment  massed  action 
has  been  so  compelling  that  manly  individuality 
and  strength  have  been  almost  killed. 

The  woman  of  to-day  has  been  influenced  deleteri- 
ously  in  another  direction.  There  are  in  the  human 
mind  a  whole  bundle  of  faculties  not  yet  investi- 
gated or  even  faintly  understood.  We  speak  of 
them  unscientifically  as  instincts,  which  they  are  not, 
for  instincts  are  invariable,  or  almost  invariable,  in 
their  activities ;  we  call  them  intuitions,  conscience, 
and  many  other  names.  Yet  no  name  is  inclusive 
enough  to  include  all  these  powers.  Instincts  need 
not  trouble  us  here,  for  the  most  part  they  act  in- 
voluntarily and  unconsciously,  and  we  may  safely 
leave  them  to  continue  so  to  act.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  our  bodily  appetites  ;  satisfied  within  healthy 
bounds,  and  controlled  by  higher  human  impulses, 
they  offer  little  difficulty  to  the  will  of  the  healthy 
individual.  The  real  practical  difficulty  is  in  this — 
we  have  rational  powers,  we  have  intuitions,  we  have 
feelings,  and  we  have  strange  moral  standards  in  our 
minds  ;  shall  we  live  a  reasonable,  an  intuitional,  an 
emotional,  or  a  morally  guided  life  ?  or,  a  larger 
question  still,  how  shall  we  train  our  minds  so  that 


Our  Great-grandparents  &  Ourselves  75 

each  factor  in  our  lives  shall  direct  at  the  right 
moment  and  be  subordinate  at  others  ?  It  has  been 
the  misfortune  of  our  past  system  of  education  that 
we  have  recognised  in  our  schools,  and,  alas,  even  in 
our  colleges,  only  one  form  of  mental  training,  that 
connected  with  the  art  of  learning,  and  to  a  less  ex- 
tent with  the  method  of  reasoning  about  learning. 
Intuitions,  mental  feelings,  moral  inner  standards, 
these  have  not  simply  been  counted  as  nothing,  but 
have  been  overlooked,  and  as  one  result  there  has 
grown  up  a  belief  that  reason  and  knowledge  are  sole 
guides  to  life,  and  that  our  other  powers  of  the 
mind  not  only  have  no  place,  but  no  existence. 

The  older  people,  who  had  little  education,  exer- 
cised these  other  powers  of  their  minds,  and  believed 
in  them  to  an  extent  that  to  the  modern  mind  not 
conversant  with  the  literature  and  habits  of  the 
people  of  the  past  is  difficult  to  imagine,  but  in  this 
we  have  lost  immeasurably. 

Two  doctors  see  the  same  patient,  sometimes 
nearly  under  the  same  conditions,  and  one  in  a 
momentary  flash  sees  what  the  patient  is  suffering 
from.  In  his  examination  he  puts  on  one  side 
irrelevant  details  and  symptoms,  and  makes  an 
accurate  diagnosis ;  and  the  other  fails,  perhaps, 
after  a  painstaking  examination.  Two  students 
examine  one  book,  one  seizes  upon  a  few  essential 
points  and  buys  it  to  read,  or  rejects  because  it  is 
not  worth  reading  ;  the  other  reads  the  work  pains- 
takingly as  a  whole  before  he  can  form  any  judgment. 
Two  artists  stay  at  one  country-side,  and  the  one  in 
a  few  days  has  discovered  nearly  all  the  "  paintable  " 
places ;  the  other  attempts  every  view,  and  only 


76  The  Nature  of  Woman 

discovers  some  are  unpaintable  after  he  has  tried  to 
paint  them.  Two  drivers  reach  a  difficult  spot  in 
city  traffic,  the  one  sees  how  to  manipulate  his 
vehicle,  the  other  follows  slowly  only  as  obvious 
openings  arise.  We  say  that  the  good  man  has  the 
eye  for  his  work  and  the  inferior  man  has  not,  yet  it  is 
notorious  that  this  absence  of  eye  is  just  what  many 
students  lack,  and  it  is  the  vital  thing  for  success  in 
life.  The  older  people  used  to  say  that  the  capable 
man  had  nous^  the  incapable  only  knowledge,  and 
nous  is  something  different  as  a  faculty  of  the 
mind  from  the  faculty  of  learning.  The  former  can 
apply,  the  latter  can  absorb  knowledge,  and  these 
powers  of  the  mind  are  not  the  same. 

Every  alert  mind  knows  what  is  meant  by  "  jump- 
ing to  a  conclusion  " ;  in  the  middle  of  a  difficult 
problem  a  "  sudden  "  "  inspiration  "  comes ;  how 
it  is  reached  we  do  not  know,  but  the  real  inspiration 
when  it  comes  is  nearly  always  the  right  one,  and 
something  in  our  minds  tells  us  it  is  right ;  it  has 
been  facetiously  spoken  of  as  an  "  intuiting  "  type  of 
mind  as  compared  with  a  reasoning,  but  there  is  not 
the  least  doubt  that  the  power  of  intuiting  is  a  real 
mind  power,  and  that,  unlike  the  reasoning  power,  the 
steps  by  which  the  conclusion  is  reached  are  hidden. 

Once  more,  there  is  something  within  all  healthy 
minds  that  "knows  its  own  goodness  and  badness,"  as 
it  has  been  said.  How  it  does  so  we  do  not  know. 
Why  it  does  so  we  cannot  always  say.  Religious 
people  call  it  conscience,  but  the  fact  that  it  exists 
for  the  majority  of  people  is  undoubted. 

Finally,  our  feelings  confront  us  with  other 
guides.  The  feeling,  for  instance,  of  privacy  and 


Our  Great-grandparents  &  Ourselves  77 

sanctity  from  the  public  eye  of  the  bodily  form,  that 
no  reason  can  justify ;  that  an  artist  of  the  nude  is 
often  genuinely  angry  with,  and  yet  in  his  heart  as 
genuinely  respects,  is  in  human  evolution  a  high  one, 
and  therefore  commands  respect,  develops  late  in 
civilisation,  and  takes  rank  over  primitive  feelings.1 

The  feelings  of  sex  and  human  sex  love,  and  their 
expressions  in  words,  thoughts,  and  actions  of 
endearment,  that  are  beyond  reason  yet  none  the 
less  real  and  full  of  human  value,  and  those  that 
direct  us  towards  truth,  beauty,  destiny,  and  at  rare 
moments  of  our  lives  to  a  power  beyond  Nature,  call 
it  God  or  by  some  other  name,  these  feelings  touch 
the  topmost  heights  of  our  character,  and  reason 
cannot  and  ought  not  to  sway  them ;  yet  it  ought  to 
be  able  to  teach  us  the  difference  between  true 
feelings,  and  sentiments  and  false. 

Reason  and  will  lead  to  a  governed  character, 
intuition  to  a  nimble  one,  conscience  to  a  noble 
one,  and  mind  feelings  to  a  sensitive,  fresh,  intense 
character,  full  of  subtlety  and  charm,  nous  to 
practical  success  in  life. 

It  has  been  nothing  less  than  a  misfortune  to  our 
age  that  reason  and  will  and  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge  through  reason  have  been  almost  alone 
valued,  and  that  even  thus  the  most  important  part 
of  learning,  the  absorption  of  knowledge  through 
meditation  into  the  individual  mind,  so  that  it  be- 
comes real  wisdom  and  not  a  parrot  learning,  has 
scarcely  been  considered.  The  result,  bad  for  men, 
has  been  far  worse  for  women. 

The  woman  is  a  bad  reasoner  at  best,  but  she  is  a 
1  See  note  at  end  of  chapter. 


78  The  Nature  of  Woman 

good  intuitionist  if  her  powers  of  mind  are  given 
free  and  healthful  scope.  This  is  shown  in  many 
ways :  in  the  distaste  the  woman  feels  for  philosophy, 
and  her  tendency  to  pedantry,  if  she  takes  this 
subject  up,  and  in  the  fact  that  where  women  have 
excelled,  it  has  been  in  fields  where  description  and 
observation  are  required,  as  in  literature  or  the  stage, 
and  not  in  constructive  thought.  Any  student  of 
woman's  literature  can  easily  convince  himself  of 
this  truth.  Elizabeth  Hamilton,  Harriet  Martineau, 
Mrs.  Somerville,  or  modern  writers  in  scientific 
fields,  not  working  in  co-operation  with  men,  will 
be  seen,  if  compared  with  women  of  their  own 
period  in  literary  fields,  as,  for  example,  Fanny 
Burney,  Charlotte  Bronte,  or  some  of  the  modern 
novelists,  to  be  practically  always  of  inferior  calibre, 
and  the  supreme  efforts  of  genius  demonstrate  this 
beyond  dispute.  I  shall  return  to  this  subject  later, 
but  it  was  an  extreme  misfortune  for  women,  worse 
even  than  it  was  for  men,  that  this  rational  side  only 
has  been  so  unaccountably  accentuated  in  our 
schools  and  colleges.  The  result  has  been  a  distrust 
of  woman  and  of  woman's  powers  by  woman  herself, 
the  setting  up  of  an  incomplete  masculine  ideal,  and 
the  denial  in  education  and  in  industry  of  womanly 
individuality  and  life,  under  the  cloak  of  that  much- 
abused  word  emancipation.  Woman's  mind  has 
suffered,  and  her  health  has  suffered,  as  might  easily 
have  been  predicted. 

First  her  mind  has  been  taught  to  disbelieve  in 
natural,  healthy  promptings,  and  consequently, 
although  she  has  a  natural  feeling  for  refinement, 
yet  she  has  tended  to  become  careless  in  her  choice 


Our  Great-grandparents  &  Ourselves  79 

of  expressions,  to  use  slang  freely,  to  play  at  smoking, 
which,  she  obviously  has  no  real  taste  for,  and  to 
encourage  man  to  think  of  her  as  a  fellow-man, 
practical  above  all  things.  The  old-fashioned 
mother  at  her  worst  was  simply  a  bearer  of  children, 
but  at  her  best  she  had  the  eye  for  motherhood,  that 
intuitive  understanding  and  sympathy  which  is  far 
more  essential  than  all  the  book-lore  in  the  world, 
good  and  useful  as  this  is ;  but  the  new  mother  dis- 
trusts her  intuitions  and  her  feelings  alike,  and  reads 
the  latest  work  on  child  diseases,  which  she  does  not 
understand,  and  sees  morbid  ailments  in  nearly 
every  action  of  her  child,  and  yet,  with  all  her 
care,  takes  it  out  on  a  cold  winter's  night  three 
hours  after  its  normal  time  for  rest.  The  new 
woman  thinks  love  is  out  of  date,  because  she  cannot 
understand  love — of  course,  nobody  can — talks  of 
divorce  and  other  kindred  rational  ideas,  but  is 
secretly  pleased  if  a  man  she  comes  to  care  for  sweeps 
these  aside  and  treats  her  as  a  human,  living,  feeling 
woman  after  all ;  but  meanwhile  something  has  gone 
out  of  her  life,  something  that  lifted  a  man  up  in  his 
thought  of  her,  her  belief  in  love  as  an  unselfish, 
lasting,  lifelong  ideal,  and  a  trust  in  the  man  she 
loved,  that  aimed  at,  even  though  it  often  fell  short 
of,  being  absolute.  No  man  and  no  woman  who 
faces  this  question  honestly  can  deny  that  it  is  this 
unselfish  conjugal  love  of  the  woman  for  her 
husband  and  of  the  mother  for  her  child  which 
takes  a  real,  lasting  hold  on  husband  and  child  alike, 
and  is  the  real  elevating  force  of  woman  in  the  world, 
yet  we  are  told  that  "  any  woman  can  make  a  home, 
any  woman  can  love,  any  woman  can  be  a  mother  "  ; 


8o  The  Nature  of  Woman 

and  these  assertions  are  only  saved  from  being  base 
falsehoods  by  this  fact,  that  there  is  something  of 
the  home  spirit,  something  of  the  womanly  love 
spirit,  something  of  the  mother's  feeling  in  all 
healthy  women  ;  but  the  ordinary  child  who  picks  a 
flower  and  asks  a  question  about  its  growth  has  some- 
thing of  the  biological  spirit  in  its  little  mind,  some- 
thing which  gives  it  a  distant  kinship  to  a  Darwin, 
and  motherhood,  wifehood,  homehood  (if  I  may 
use  the  word)  at  their  ripest  are  as  rare  in  their  forms 
of  genius  almost  as  the  genius  of  Darwin  ;  and 
mother-craft,  house-craft,  and  home-craft  are  more 
essential  to  the  world's  progress  and  as  noble  studies, 
and  this  is  said  in  no  bitter  sense,  but  as  simple, 
obvious  truth,  than  classic  Greek  and  Latin  studies, 
even  if  we  add  German  to  them.  This,  then,  is  one 
of  the  real  evils  of  the  modern  life,  as  compared  with 
the  old  :  it  has  exalted  one  element  of  study,  and  one 
element  only,  to  be  the  supreme  thought,  and  by 
doing  so  it  has  incapacitated  the  woman  to  see  and 
feel  the  greatness  of  her  own  being.  She  has  become 
feebly  rational,  instead  of  alertly  intuitive.  She  has 
ceased  to  trust  her  feelings,  and  has  been  in  some 
measure  degraded  by  it.  The  moral  outlook  is  no 
longer  trusted,  and  she  is  not  really  happy  at  the 
change. 

Beyond  this  the  rational  process  has  taught  her  to 
analyse  herself  very  defectively,  and  she  has  produced 
books,  and  encouraged  men  to  produce  them,  which 
in  their  unhealthiness  of  thought  can  have  no  real 
claim  for  their  existence.1 

1  There  can  be  no  serious  question  about  this  unfortunate  aspect 
of  a  certain  type  of  woman's  mind ;  several  of  the  better  class  of 


Our  Great-grandparents  &  Ourselves  81 

And,  lastly,  her  health  has  suffered.  As  I  stated 
elsewhere,  there  are  no  statistics  or  observations 
existing  which  make  an  accurate  estimate  of  the 
relative  health  of  the  women  of  this  generation,  as 
compared  with  earlier  ones,  except  the  quite  un- 

papers,  such  as  "  The  Times  "  and  "  The  Westminster  Gazette," 
have  called  attention  to  this  fact  in  regard  to  certain  women  novelists 
and  also  writers  on  problems  of  womanhood,  and  in  this  respect  Miss 
Godden  and  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  have  done  really  good  social 
service  in  recognising  the  danger  and  cautioning  women  about  it 
from  the  woman's  point  of  view,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt,  either, 
that  this  unhealthy  outlook  is  not  confined  to  women  writers, 
though,  perhaps,  its  worst  examples  are.  A  few  simple  facts  drawn 
from  some  advertisements  that  have  reached  me  from  various  sources 
will  demonstrate  this  point  and  place  it  beyond  dispute.  It  is 
first  necessary  to  observe  that  medical  text-books  on  physiology, 
or  on  a  branch  of  medicine  where  such  matters  have  to  be 
adequately  discussed,  seldom  allot  more  than  a  chapter,  and  some- 
times a  small  chapter,  to  the  whole  field,  and  though  some  writers, 
perhaps,  have  given  too  little  attention  to  questions  that  are  of  very 
great  social  importance,  yet  it  is  certain  that  thirty  to  forty  pages  is 
an  outside  limit  for  the  needs  of  medical  men,  and  less  than  half 
this  for  the  non-medical  mind,  yet  the  following  space  has  been 
given  by  various  writers  of  books  that  claim  to  be  written  with  a 
moral  rather  than  an  immoral  intent  : 

One  of  the  least  objectionable  writers  is  responsible  for  four 
volumes,  and  two  women  for  another  four,  on  a  subject  that  could 
have  easily  been  compressed  into  a  little  pamphlet ;  another  devotes 
seven  hundred  pages  to  physiological  details  ;  two  more  one  thousand 
odd  in  length,  and  another  almost  as  long,  and  all  of  these  are 
written  by  English  writers.  An  American  work,  circulated  freely 
in  England,  devotes  thirty  odd  chapters  and  four  hundred  odd 
pages  to  similar  thoughts,  and  these  are  the  best  books  of  their 
class.  An  American  publisher  has  recently  placed  upon  the 
English-speaking  market  four  German  works,  purporting  to  be 
scientific,  each  of  them  varying  from  nearly  five  hundred  to  over 
eight  hundred  pages,  and  we  are  told  that  one  of  these,  that  was 
advertised  in  the  daily  Press,  has  had  a  circulation  of  nearly  forty 
thousand  in  Germany  alone. 


82  The  Nature  of  Woman 

reliable  statements  which  can  be  historically  demon- 
strated to  be  false,  save  for  a  small  percentage  of 
the  nation,  as  to  women  fainting  in  earlier  times,  as 
certain  fiction  writers  have  stated. 

The  facts  that  are  known  are  quite  otherwise. 
The  woman  of  the  past  was  in  the  main  admittedly 
a  hard-working  housewife,  and  not  seldom  a  home- 
maker  in  the  best  and  highest  sense  of  the  term. 
She  was  a  mother  often  of  a  large  family,  and  though 
sometimes  she  was  a  scold,  she  was  not  what  is  often 
spoken  of  as  "  nervy." 

The  woman  of  to-day  bears  childbirth  difficulties 
badly ;  often  her  health  is  seriously  affected  after 
the  birth  of  the  first  child,  and  the  evenness  of 
temper  and  good  spirit  still  observable  among  the 
better-class  poor  woman  have  almost  gone  in  some 
ranks  of  womanhood  to-day. 

I  do  not  wish  to  analyse  too  closely  such  causes, 
nor  to  press  home  facts  which  must  be  patent  to 
every  observing  man  and  woman  who  has  any  sound 
historical  knowledge.  There  has  been  a  gain  and  loss 
in  the  growing  freedom  of  women  in  the  last 
century,  and  in  the  change  in  the  life  of  men 
human  associations  have  greatly  lessened  and  life 
has  become  colder  and  less  human,  religious  faith 
has  been  undermined,  and  the  feeling  of  a  purpose 
in  life  has,  therefore,  been  undermined  too.  Life 
has  been  methodised,  organised,  until  individuality 
and  manly  independence  of  character  have  been 
seriously  weakened,  and  in  education  only  the 
rational  and  accumulated  knowledge  aspects  have 
been  heeded,  leaving  other  fields  as  large  and  as 
important  quite  untouched ;  and  womanly  indi- 


Our  Great-grandparents  &  Ourselves  83 

viduality  has  suffered  severely  as  a  result  of  this 
incomplete  aim. 

There  has  been  gain  and  loss,  gain  in  the  ordering 
of  life,  in  its  added  material  comforts,  in  its  greater 
security,  in  its  opening  out  to  all  of  knowledge  and 
all  that  knowledge  means ;  but  life  has  been  de- 
humanised, and  to  a  large  extent  robbed  of  its  man- 
hood, and  dewomanised,  and  if  real  progress  is  to 
be  made  these  ideals  must  be  recovered. 

Economic  needs  are  necessary,  vital  to  social  life, 
but  what  is  healthy  and  human  is  even  more  vital. 
Life  which  has  few  human  associations,  which  aims 
at  supplying  workers  for  machines,  hands  in  factory 
activities,  assistants  behind  shop  counters,  must  be 
enriched  and  enlarged  so  as  to  include  in  its  scope 
the  laws  of  life  and  the  needs  of  individual  men  and 
women.  And  woman's  life  will  only  be  expanded, 
really  emancipated,  when  she  becomes  conscious  that 
she  has  a  mental  and  a  bodily  individuality,  and  is 
content  to  work  within  it  and  through  it  to  a  self- 
realised  life  that  has  obeyed  the  healthy  calls  of  her 
own  being. 

Of  course,  in  this  account  I  have  been  speaking  of 
general  characteristics  of  the  women  of  the  times ; 
I  know  quite  well,  and  appreciate,  the  many  ex- 
ceptions who,  in  spite  of  the  downward  tendency  of 
the  age,  have  kept  their  freshness  and  vitality  of  out- 
look. 

Note 

Excessive  Rationalism 

I  am  convinced  that  this  rational  but  quite  unscientific  disregard 
for  natural  feelings  is  often  fraught  with  grave  danger  and  always 
with  loss  to  the  individual  character.  A  few  references  to  some 


84  The  Nature  of  Woman 

earlier  statements  of  my  own  and  of  other  people  may  make  this  clear. 
Dudley  Kidd  has  shown,  and  other  travellers  have  confirmed  his 
statements,  that  the  harm  that  can  be  done  to  native  Kaffirs  and  other 
primitive  peoples  by  trying  to  treat  them  without  regard  to  native 
customs  may  be  very  great  indeed,  and  much  of  this  same  rational 
spirit  is  responsible  for  the  decay  of  more  sensitive  and  higher 
feelings  closely  related  to  everyday  morality  in  ourselves.  In  a 
discussion  which  I  opened  on  the  subject  of  "  Medical  Inspection 
of  Children  in  Public  Elementary  Schools  "  in  "  The  Westminster 
Gazette,"  l  I  pointed  out  the  danger  of  sapping  parental  responsibility 
and  the  likelihood  of  a  degradation  of  feeling  if  personal  toilet  and 
the  privacy  which  it  and  other  acts  of  life  demand  were  treated  in 
school  life  publicly. 

In  the  correspondence  which  followed,  one  article  by  a  "  Regis- 
tered Teacher  "  contains  the  following  passage,  and  a  much  worse 
instance  elsewhere  has  since  been  brought  to  my  notice  : 

"  In  the  baths  themselves  the  children  (whether  there  be  sufficient 
room  otherwise  or  not)  are  placed  two  in  a  box.  These  boxes  are 
open  in  front.  Of  the  boys  a  number,  varying  according  to  school 
environment,  wear  some  sort  of  swimming  costume  ;  many,  and  in 
some  cases  most,  are  absolutely  nude.  They  undress  and  reach  this 
state  of  nudity  in  circumstances  absolutely  lacking  privacy,  but  supplied 
with  companions  similarly  situated ;  and,  after  bathing,  they  dress 
again,  somewhat  more  slowly,  but  otherwise  in  like  fashion.  If  the 
children  were  all  to  select  their  companions  the  harm  would  be 
lessened,  but  not  all  boys  are  free  from  coarseness  of  thought  and 
word,  and  the  practice  indicated  must  be,  for  a  child  naturally 
modest,  one  entailing  some  loss  of  feelings  he  would  better  retain. 

"  The  only  theory  that  I  have  ever  heard  advanced  in  justifica- 
tion of  the  public  exhibition  of  nudity  is  that  of  moral  hardening 
— that  the  habit  of  sight  and  of  action  decreases  the  vividity  of 
impression.  It  does,  but  the  question  is  whether  it  is  desirable  that 
the  vividity  and  the  unpleasant  shock  should  be  decreased." 

My  own  passage,  which  called  forth  this  confirmation,  was  as 
follows  : 

"  Certain  habits  and  hygienic  needs  of  the  body,  by  universal 
consent,  it  is  admitted,  should  be  carried  out  in  absolute  privacy. 
Almost  all  social  workers  have  pointed  out  the  lack  of  such  seclusion 
in  the  lives  of  the  poor  and  the  need  for  reform  in  this  respect. 

1  September  5th,  1908. 


Our  Great-grandparents  &  Ourselves  85 

As  the  vulgarity  which  slum-life  displays  can,  it  is  maintained,  be 
in  great  part  traced  to  this  cause,  to  increase  rather  than  diminish 
this  tendency  cannot  fail  to  be  highly  detrimental  to  social  life.  The 
best  effort  in  our  hospitals  and  our  infirmaries  is  directed  towards 
the  diminution  of  this  evil,  and  it  cannot  make  us,  as  a  nation,  more 
refined  if  we  neglect  fundamental  refinements  during  the  childhood 
period  of  our  citizens." 

And  I  may  add  that  I  have  come  to  feel  that  the  final  step  in 
these  matters,  even  as  regards  hospital  patients,  is  for  one  case  to 
be  seen  privately  by  not  more  than  one  doctor  and  two  students  as 
a  rule,  and  this  is  especially  true  for  women ;  similar  precautions 
ought  to  be  taken  for  boys  and  girls. 

This  sense  of  privacy  is  a  late  development  of  the  race,  but  still 
thousands  of  years  old,  as  the  earlier  parts  of  the  Bible  and 
other  writings  of  primitive  races  clearly  testify  to,  as  well  as  the 
evolution  of  child  nature  itself,  and  it  is  a  grave  scientific  error — I 
would  almost  say  a  social  error — to  treat  such  a  feeling  as  if  it 
were  non-existent. 

A  similar  attitude  of  mind  was  raised  in  a  controversy  on  co- 
education in  the  same  paper.  I  urged  that  one  of  the  biological 
difficulties  against  co-education  was  the  obvious  natural  desire  of 
girls  and  boys  during  pubescence,  roughly  from  the  years  nine  to 
fourteen  or  fifteen,  to  keep  apart  from  each  other  in  games  and 
friendship,  and  I  am  met  with  the  criticism,  not  disputing,  be  it 
noticed,  my  assertion  of  a  fact,  that  we  should  "  be  on  our  guard 
against  assuming  that  anything  is  a  fundamental  part  of  young 
human  nature  which  may  be  only  a  by-product  of  the  very  system 
of  segregation  which  we  are  now  putting  on  the  defence." 

Can  anyone  acquainted  with  school  life  in  schools  that  are  not 
co-educational,  or  where  they  are,  assert  that  there  is  any  ground 
to  be  on  our  guard  in  this  matter  ?  The  majority  of  schools  for 
girls  and  boys  do  not  err  on  the  side  of  standing  by  any  natural 
feelings,  the  fear  much  more  is  of  their  complete  suppression. 
Probably  every  individual  reader  can  remember  the  change  in  his 
or  her  own  mind,  which  at  about  ten  or  eleven  years  made  the 
other  sex  temporarily  to  some  extent  distasteful.  As  a  fact,  the 
same  tendency  towards  one-sex  friendship  can  be  shown  in  the 
development  of  human  races,  the  comradeship  of  men  and  women 
being  scarcely  established  even  in  Greek  times.  It  can  be  seen  in 
narcotic  drug  deteriorations  of  character,  as  it  is  rare  for  a  chum  in 
drunkards  to  be  of  a  different  sex,  and  in  many  other  studies  of  life. 


86  The  Nature  of  Woman 

Yet  here  are  two  feelings,  both  connected  probably  with  the 
moral  needs  of  life,  which,  because  a  rational  explanation  of  their 
meaning  cannot  be  given,  are  to  be  hardened  out  of  existence.  It 
is  a  dangerous,  slippery  path  this  that  mankind  is  treading,  for  not 
one  act  or  expression  in  the  reality  of  human  love  can  be  justified 
by  reason,  and  neither  beauty,  nor  truth,  nor  monogamic  love  have 
ever  found  a  satisfying  philosophy  on  which  to  rely.  Meantime 
plausible  reasoning  has  made  many  things  possible  in  married  and 
unmarried  life  that  would  have  been  rejected  a  hundred  years  ago 
as  unnatural,  and  it  is  notorious  that  there  are  certain  large  business 
firms  that  trade  on  this  rational  but  unscientific,  unhealthy,  and  un- 
religious  side  of  life.  At  least  we  may  be  sure  of  this,  that  the 
reason  is  not  the  only  quality,  nor  the  only  guiding  quality,  of  the 
mind. 


Chapter  VI 

The  Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance 


word  evolution  has  come  to  be  used  in 
several  distinct  ways,  and  therefore  needs 
defining  ;  if  by  evolution  is  meant  a  growth  out  of 
an  antecedent  condition,  the  word  change  would 
do  equally  well  ;  but  if  evolution  means,  as  it  is 
usually  taken  to  mean  in  the  more  popular  use  of 
the  word,  progressive  change,  then  we  should 
use  this  term  more  sparingly  and  scientifically 
than  we  do.  From  this  outlook  it  is  a  misnomer 
to  speak  of  the  evolution  of  plants,  because  it 
cannot  be  said  that  any  one  type  of  plant  is  higher 
than  another  ;  some  are  more  complex  and  some 
more  specialised,  but  no  plant  form  can  be  said 
to  be  higher  than  any  other,  a  moss  than  a  tree 
or  a  flower,  or  vice  versa. 

It  is  otherwise  in  the  animal  kingdom.  Step  by 
step  as  we  rise  from  one  order  to  later  orders  that 
follow  it  a  real  rise  in  type  is  discovered,  single-celled 
are  inferior  to  many-celled,  and  as  we  advance  from 
sponge-like  animals  to  worms,  shell  animals,  insects, 
fishes,  reptiles,  birds,  and  mammals,  up  to  man,  it 
is  seen  that  the  later  developing  classes  of  animals 
have  an  increasing  share  of  mind,  that  there  is  an 
evolution  of  animal  life  from  lower  to  higher 
types,  and  mind  is  the  test  of  what  is  low  and  high. 

87 


88  The  Nature  of  Woman 

Is  there,  then,  an  evolution  o£  sex  ?  Has  sex 
any  relation  to  this  development  of  the  higher 
out  of  the  lower  ?  Or  are  sex  characteristics 
about  the  same  in  their  significance  at  all  stages 
of  animal  existence?  Obviously  there  is  no  evolu- 
tion of  sex  in  plants,  though  some  plants  carry  both 
kinds  of  sex  in  one  flower  and  others  two  kinds  of 
flower  on  one  plant,  and  others,  again,  two  kinds  of 
flowers  on  separate  plants.  There  is  simply  more 
differentiation  in  one  type  of  plant  than  in  another  ; 
and  at  first  sight  the  same  appears  to  be  the  fact 
in  regard  to  animal  life.  Many  male  and  female 
insects  are  widely  different  in  appearance,  some 
parasitic  worms  look  almost  as  if  they  belonged 
to  different  species  of  life ;  birds  seem  to  be  very 
sharply  marked  off,  one  sex  from  the  other ;  while 
even  in  one  group,  such  as  the  lions,  some  are  maned 
and  others  maneless.  And  man,  as  compared  with 
other  animals,  is  curiously  free  from  these  sharp 
contrasts,  so  that  it  appears  as  if  sexual  differences 
in  animals  depended  upon  no  evolutional  law, 
are  simply  marked  in  some  forms  of  life  and  little 
marked  in  others. 

In  plants  where  male  flowers  exist  on  one  plant 
and  female  on  another  the  leaves  and  shape  of  the 
whole  plant  are  sometimes  different ;  but,  taken 
as  a  whole,  male  and  female  plants  differ  less  in 
their  plant  forms  than  male  and  female  animals  do 
in  their  animal  forms.  John  Hunter,  Thomas  Lay- 
cock,  and  after  them  Charles  Darwin,  spoke  of  these 
bodily  differences  as  secondary  sex  characters,  and 
those  immediately  concerned  with  parentage  as 
primary.  In  Darwin's  work  on  sexual  selection  he 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  89 

has  collected  an  immense  quantity  of  these  secondary 
differences  of  sex,  and  the  variety  is  such  that  it 
seems  as  if  no  law  could  be  deduced  from  man. 

If,  however,  all  characteristics  are  excluded  which 
are  confined  to  one  species  or  two  species  of  related 
life,  and  only  those  bodily  sex  differences  which  per- 
vade the  whole  scale  of  animal  life  are  for  the  moment 
considered,  it  will  be  found  that  there  are  some 
characters  which  are  constant  in  being  always  pre- 
sent, and  that  these  constant  characters  do  undergo 
a  very  definite  change,  becoming  increasingly 
marked  as  we  pass  from  the  lowest  forms  of  life  up 
to  man.  We  have  thus  three  groups  of  characters 
in  relation  to  sex  :  primary,  those  essential  to 
parentage ;  secondary,  those  present  in  all  sex 
states ;  tertiary,  those  present  in  one  or  more 
related  species,  but  not  present  elsewhere  in  the 
animal  kingdom.  Thus  spurs  are  present  in  many 
male  birds,  horns  in  some  cattle  in  both  sexes,  in 
only  the  male  sex  in  others,  and  where  they  are 
only  present  in  the  male  sex  they  are  tertiary  charac- 
ters. In  like  manner  the  male  salmon  has  the  lower 
jaw,  in  some  varieties  only  during  the  breeding 
season,  turned  upward,  and  in  the  permanent 
varieties  of  this  feature  it  is  armed  with  teeth.  This 
is  not  a  characteristic  of  all  fishes,  but  only  of  the 
salmon  species,  hence  it  is  a  tertiary  feature,  not  a 
secondary  one. 

The  most  constant  secondary  feature  is  the  de- 
velopment of  the  hip  region  of  the  body  in  the 
female  and  the  chest  region  in  the  male,  and  whether 
we  turn  to  man  or  lower  animals,  this  broad  generali- 
sation holds  true. 


90  The  Nature  of  Woman 

Sexual  Evolution  in  the  Race 

ist  stage.  The  -fixation  and,  specialisation  of  sex 
tissue.  The  lowest  form  of  animal  multiplication 
is  by  division  of  a  single-celled  organism  into  two 
parts,  and  certain  lower  forms  of  many-celled  or- 
ganisms can  do  the  same,  and,  of  course,  this  is  quite 
a  common  form  of  multiplication  in  plants,  runners, 
or  elongated  stems,  developing  roots  where  they 
touch  the  earth,  and  leaves  and  flowers  where  they 
are  exposed  to  the  air,  and  thus  a  new  plant  is  pro- 
duced from  a  simple  shoot.  Animals  early  lose  this 
power,  and  germinal  tissue  becomes  specialised  and 
localised  at  one  spot,  probably,  quite  early  in  animal 
evolution,  as  the  formation  of  a  new  individual  is  a 
more  complex  problem  than  in  plants. 

2nd  stage.  The  hermaphrodite  condition.  In 
several  invertebrate  organisms  the  two  sexes  are 
united  in  one  body,  just  as  in  some  plants,  and  it  is 
not  until  this  condition  of  sex  life  has  become  highly 
specialised  that  one  of  these  sets  of  structures  be- 
comes subordinate  and  the 

$rd  stage,  a  unisexual  one,  is  reached,  and  through- 
out the  vertebrata,  up  to  its  highest  mammalian  order, 
the  bodily  forms  of  the  two  sexes,  always  retaining 
traces  or  rudiments  of  the  complementary  sex,  are 
increasingly  defined,  and  in  man  the  greatest  differ- 
ences of  bodily  form  are  to  be  found.  In  several  im- 
portant features  it  can  easily  be  demonstrated  that 
the  differences  in  man  are  greater  than  in  any  living 
creature. 

I .  The  contrast  between  shoulder  and  hip  de- 
velopment is  more  than  in  any  other  animal. 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  91 

2.  There  is  a  marked  difference  in  the  blood  of 
woman  as  compared  with  man,  it  containing 
one-ninth  fewer  red  blood  corpuscles,  and 
therefore  a  proportionately  smaller  quantity 
of  oxygen.     This  almost  certainly  means  a 
less  rapid  tissue-exchange,  which  in  adoles- 
cence in  girls,  and  later  in  women,  may  be 
associated  with  a  seriously  impoverished  con- 
dition of    the  blood,  chlorosis  or  anaemia. 
This  state  is  only  very  exceptionally  known 
in  men,  and  there  is  probably  nowhere  else 
such    sharp    contrast    between    males    and 
females  of  the  same  species. 

3.  The  woman  is  mentally  much  more  "  af- 
fectable  "  than  the  man,  and  in  extreme  cases 
hysteria  or  an  exaggeration  of  this  affecta- 
bility takes  place.     There  is  no  recognised 
mental  state  corresponding  to  this  in  animals. 

4.  The  change  from  immaturity  to  maturity 
runs  a  more  widely  contrasted  course  in  boys 
and  girls  than  in  any  other  known  forms  of 
animal  life. 

These  four  points  are  sufficient  to  prove  that,  in 
essential  secondary  bodily  and  mental  character- 
istics, man  is  the  most  sexed  of  all  creatures,  and 
were  it  necessary  to  demonstrate  the  evolution,  it 
could  be  shown  that  mammals  are  more  so  than 
birds,  and  birds  than  amphibia  and  reptiles,  and 
these  more  than  fishes ;  but  these  points  will  be- 
come clearer  and  their  meaning  more  certain  when 
we  consider  the  physiological  significance  of  sexual 
evolution.  It  ought  here  to  be  pointed  out  that 
each  of  these  four  characteristics  that  separate  man 


92  The  Nature  of  Woman 

from  the  animal  group  also  separate  civilised  from 
savage  man,  and  that,  in  face,  form,  and  mind  char- 
acteristics, barbaric  women  and  men  are  more  alike 
than  members  of  either  Eastern  or  Western  civili- 
sations, though  in  this  respect,  as  in  some  others, 
both  the  Eastern  and  the  Hellenic  Greek  and  ancient 
worlds  are  midway  between  barbaric  tribes  to-day 
and  the  Western  life  in  which  we  live. 

Sexual  Evolution  in  the  Individual 

The  three  stages,  of  fixation  of  germ  tissue,  her- 
maphroditism,  and  unisexual  development,  are  all 
passed  through  by  the  child  before  birth,  and  after 
birth  childhood,  pubescence,  and  adolescence  mark 
three  further  stages  of  immaturity ;  the  asexual 
feelings  and  capacity  of  the  child,  the  bodily  and  at 
last  the  mental  consciousness  of  sex  following  in 
order. 

The  history  of  the  race  and  of  the  child  alike  point 
to  the  conclusion  that  mental  and  bodily  sex  indi- 
viduality is  of  progressive  importance  in  human  evo- 
lution, and  therefore,  after  the  childhood  period  is 
passed,  biology  cannot  favour  co-educational  or  co- 
occupational  systems  of  social  life. 

Physiological  Significance  of  Sex 

To  understand  the  physiological  significance  of 
sex  one  must  see  it  clearly  in  two  distinct  and  cor- 
relative lights :  (a)  one  must  see  that  sexual  evolu- 
tion has  developed  in  the  animal  kingdom,  and  that 
it  must  remain  a  great  force  in  man ;  (b)  also 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  93 

that  this  accentuation  of  sex  has  made  possible 
for  us  individual  value  in  life,  and  in  addition  added 
to  our  individualities  ranges  of  feeling  and  incentives 
to  action  that  otherwise  would  have  been  absent 
from  life. 

Why  Sexual  Evolution  has  Developed  in  the 
Animal  Kingdom 

The  significance  of  the  various  manifestations  of 
sex  in  the  plant  world  is  a  problem  that  awaits 
solution,  but  the  main  reasons  for  its  development  in 
animal  life  are  known  and  easily  comprehensible,  be- 
cause there  is  a  continuous  thread  which  widens  and 
thickens  in  importance  as  higher  forms  of  animal  life 
are  reached,  whereas  among  plants  the  changes  are 
so  indefinite  at  times,  and  so  unexpectedly  sudden 
and  emphatic  under  other  conditions,  that  one 
principle  seems  very  difficult  to  establish. 

In  the  higher  animals  the  development  of  the  im- 
mature organism  needs  increasingly  delicate  and  pro- 
tected nurture  from  exposed  external  surroundings, 
and  it  is  probable,  if  one  fully  grasped  the  whole 
significance  of  the  process,  that  one  could  predict 
with  unerring  certainty  from  the  pre-natal  demands 
of  the  organism,  in  its  life  before  birth,  its  high  or 
low  stage  in  evolutional  life  that  it  was  to  rise  to 
afterwards. 

The  exact  reason  for  the  early  specialisations  of 
sex  in  two  individuals  is  a  little  obscure.  It  has  been 
assumed  that  in  the  interests  of  hereditary  varia- 
bility two  lines  of  heredity,  male  and  female  lines, 
will  favour  a  wider  range  of  adaptability  than  could 


94  The  Nature  of  Woman 

be  obtained  from  an  hermaphrodite  condition. 
Whether  this  is  so  or  not,  it  is  more  probable  that 
the  main  cause  was  the  strain  exerted  on  any 
organism  that  carried  forward  two  separate  tissue 
specialisations  of  sex  at  the  same  or  closely  alter- 
nating periods  of  time.  Whatever  the  reason,  far 
back  in  the  history  of  animal  development,  millions 
of  years  ago,  the  sexes  for  all  higher  forms  of  animal 
life  became  distinct,  manifested  in  two  separate 
organisms,  and  from  that  time  the  process  has 
increased  in  its  tendency  towards  more  and  more 
specialised  masculine  and  feminine  bodily  forms. 

In  all  cold-blooded  animals  the  egg-cell,  which 
may  be  fertilised  inside  or  outside  of  the  feminine 
body,  develops  outside,  and  in  a  large  number  of 
instances  the  spawn  is  left  to  take  care  of  itself,  to 
grow  and  develop  if  conditions  allow  of  it  and  it  is 
not  eaten  by  foes  of  the  species,  for  its  male  and 
female  bearers  of  its  germ  tissue  leave  it  uncared  for, 
to  take  its  chances  in  existence.  Many  parent  insects 
are  dead  before  their  progeny  are  hatched,  and 
though  there  are  the  widest  differences  in  the  kind 
of  provision  made  for  larvae  and  other  forms  of  early 
life,  yet  they  have  been  too  little  studied  for  one  to 
assert  that  the  uncared-for  cell  that  is  to  begin  a  new 
life  is  really  to  give  rise  to  an  animal  form  on  a  lower 
plane  of  mental  capacity  than  one  more  cared  for. 
Thus  the  spawn  of  a  frog  is  deposited  in  an  open 
ditch,  exposed  to  changes  of  temperature,  rain,  and 
movement,  and  attacks  of  other  life  around  it,  the 
eggs  of  a  bee  are  carefully  housed  and  protected 
from  the  weather,  and  guarded  from  intrusion,  but 
it  cannot  be  asserted  on  present  knowledge  that  a  bee 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  95 

is  higher  in  its  organisation  than  the  frog,  though  it 
can  that  the  bee  is  one  of  the  highest  of  the  insects 
while  the  frog  is  one  of  the  lowest  of  the  vertebrates. 
In  these  lower  forms,  whether  of  insect  or  lower 
vertebrate  life,  the  number  of  offspring  possible  is 
what  primarily  determines  the  persistence  of  the 
species ;  as  we  ascend  the  scale,  with  many  excep- 
tions it  is  true,  fewer  lives  are  created  and  more  care 
is  taken  to  preserve  them,  and  the  individual  counts 
more  and  more  in  the  survival  of  the  type.  Thus  no 
bird,  no  mammal  bears  progeny  in  such  prodigality 
as  almost  all  life  forms  do  beneath  them.  In  birds 
and  in  egg-laying  mammals,  the  latter  nearly 
extinct,  a  rise  has  taken  place  from  the  cold-blooded 
to  the  warm-blooded  type,  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  this  rise  of  bodily  temperature  allows 
of  more  complex  chemical  changes  going  on  in  the 
body,  makes  possible  a  higher  type  of  organism,  but 
the  egg  now  has  to  be  more  carefully  provided  for, 
it  must  have  a  larger  supply  of  food  for  its  incuba- 
tion, as  it  is  longer  or  more  rapid  or  both  in  its  de- 
velopment ;  the  egg  has  to  be  protected  by  a  hard 
shell,  and  the  heat  necessary  for  the  development  of 
warm-blooded  life  has  to  be  supplied  externally  by 
the  heat  of  the  parent  bird  "  sitting  "  upon  the  egg. 
When  the  young  are  hatched  their  immaturity  is  so 
great  that  the  parent  birds  are  needed  to  feed  and 
care  for  them  until  they  are  mature  or  fledged.  In 
the  egg-laying  mammal  the  female  parent  feeds 
the  young  after  they  are  hatched  from  its  own 
body  by  its  milk,  a  carefully  prepared  food.  In  the 
pouch  mammals  the  external  incubation  period  is 
dispensed  with,  the  young  develop  in  the  mother's 


96  The  Nature  of  Woman 

body,  thus  secure  of  an  even  temperature,  of  a  com- 
pletely protected  life,  and  of  a  food  supply,  in  part 
at  least,  so  perfectly  ready  for  assimilation,  that  it 
has  been  completely  digested  and  passed  into  the 
mother's  blood  to  be  transferred  to  the  offspring. 
There  has  been  a  steady  rise  in  the  call  and  meaning 
of  motherhood.  In  the  full  mammal  all  the  early 
stages  of  development,  up  to  the  infant  form  of  its 
type,  take  place  before  birth,  the  little  life  develop- 
ing in  a  soft  muscular  organ,  filled  with  fluid  in 
which  it  floats,  so  placed  that  no  shock  can  easily 
reach  it,  so  environed  that  one  fixed  temperature  is 
secured,  so  nourished  by  an  ?xchange  of  food  supply 
from  the  mother  organism  that  it  takes  up  fully 
prepared  food,  gives  off  to  its  parent  poisonous 
waste  products,  and  develops  its  life  free  from  the 
vicissitudes  of  external  existence,  in  surroundings 
that  are  normally  germ-free  and  free  from  disease. 
Nature  takes  every  care  to  favour  a  quiescent 
growth  of  the  complex  new  life,  and  it  is  evident 
that  no  other  interpretation  is  broadly  possible  than 
that  this  provision  is  necessary,  otherwise  it  would 
not  have  been  provided,  and  the  differentiation  of 
sex  have  advanced  to  the  degreewhich  it  has  obtained 
in  the  mammalian  type.  It  does  not  end  when  man 
is  reached ;  the  barbaric  type  of  woman  takes  her 
part,  though  this  varies  among  different  primitive 
peoples,  in  the  life  of  the  tribe  until  near  the  birth- 
time  of  the  child,  in  some  tribes  almost  up  to  the 
hour  of  birth,  whereas  the  civilised  woman  would  in 
the  large  majority  of  instances  be  quite  unable  to  bear 
the  exposure  and  roughness  of  life  thus  involved, 
and  the  act  of  childbirth  is  itself  more  painful  for 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  97 

her,  because  the  child  that  is  born  is  larger-headed 
and  being  more  frail  needs  greater  after-care. 

We  see,  if  we  look  at  the  history  of  our  own 
European  Continent,  this  increasing  need  for  the 
care  of  woman  reflected  in  her  occupational  life. 
Man  under  primitive  conditions  is  concerned  with 
fighting,  hunting,  fishing,  a  maker  of  war  and  chase 
implements,  a  builder  of  huts  and  a  rearer  of  cattle. 

Woman  fetches  wood  and  water,  prepares  the 
food,  dresses  the  skins,  makes  clothes,  takes  care  of 
the  children,  cultivates  the  ground,  and  supplies  the 
household  with  vegetable  food,  gathering  roots, 
berries,  acorns,  where  agriculture  at  its  dawn  has 
scarcely  commenced. 

In  mediaeval  society  agriculture  had  passed  into 
man's  hands — except  for  the  care  of  certain  kitchen 
herbs,  and  the  management  of  poultry  where  it 
existed,  and  the  dairy  in  later  times — and  spinning, 
weaving,  knitting,  embroidery,  sewing,  cooking,  and 
gleaning  and  lighter  work  in  the  fields,  the  care  of 
the  children,  and  at  first  nursing,  doctoring  and 
midwifery,  being  woman's  sphere. 

So  day-work  in  the  fields  has  almost  gone,  and  is 
now  universally  regarded  as  unsuitable,  even  in  those 
lighter  field  industries,  such  as  strawberry  and  hop- 
picking,  which,  as  a  fact,  draw  women  of  the  lowest 
class ;  gleaning  has  almost  gone,  spinning  and  weav- 
ing have  passed  out  of  the  home,  and,  varying  in 
different  districts,  it  is  now  true  for  Great  Britain, 
and  in  various  degrees  in  other  countries,  that 
seven-eighths  of  the  whole  employment  of  women 
is  domestic,  in  which  the  rougher  work  of  scrubbing, 
boot  and  window-cleaning  is  already  passing  to  the 


98  The  Nature  of  Woman 

man.  This,  with  the  fact  that  the  immature  period 
of  the  child  is  slowly  lengthening,  demonstrate  that 
the  life  of  the  female  mammalian  up  to  and  including 
the  latest  period  of  the  highest  mammal  man  is 
tending  towards  a  quieter,  more  protected  life,  in 
which  rougher  employments  are  taken  over  by  the 
male,  and  the  domestic  field,  viewed  in  its  widest  and 
most  mental  manner,  becomes  more  and  more  the 
feminine  possession. 

Why  the  Individual  Value  of  Life  has  become 
possible  through  the  Creation  of  Sex  Types 

At  first  sight  it  seems  as  if  woman  in  this  is  being 
sacrificed  to  the  species,  or  rather,  more  accurately, 
that  man  and  woman  are  being  driven  into  lines  of 
development  that  consider  mainly  the  requirements 
of  the  species,  and  heed  little  those  of  the  individual 
member.  This  was  the  mistaken  assumption  that  so 
troubled  Tennyson  in  his  thought.  Yet  in  no  real 
sense  is  this  true.  It  is  broadly  true  that  specialisa- 
tion of  sex  has  led  the  way  in  the  thought  of  peace  as 
Darwin  pointed  out  in  his  sexual  selection,  and  as 
Drummond  and  Kropotkin  have  popularised  in 
their  thought.  Males  and  females  of  the  same 
species  rarely  fight,  and  though  in  some  instances 
early  man  did  treat  woman  roughly,  it  has  always  to 
be  remembered  that  the  times  were  rough,  and  acts 
seen  with  their  eyes  must  have  looked  very  different 
to  ours.  It  is  certain  that  without  sex  little  of  the 
gentler  influences  of  life  that  have  opened  the  way 
to  civilisation  could  have  originated,  and  the  best 
and  the  greatest  joys  are  unquestionably  those  that 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  99 

centre  round  the  home,  the  place  where  the  indi- 
vidual man  or  woman  makes  an  individual  atmo- 
sphere, becomes  really  an  individual,  and  directs  his 
life  as  an  individual  mind.  The  home  originally 
would  never  have  been  conceived  of  but  for  the  need 
of  protecting  the  young.  As  a  fact,  the  glory  of 
motherhood  on  its  mental  side  has  never  been 
stated,  and  though  it  brings  its  troubles  and  its 
difficulties,  the  opportunity  and  the  desire  that  is 
opened  out  in  the  care  of  a  child,  the  awakening 
influence  on  the  woman's  life,  the  understanding 
of  mind  or  soul  in  another  human  being,  could  have 
been  reached  by  no  other  conceivable  means.  The 
mistake  is  that  it  is  so  seldom  even  faintly  realised. 
Imagine  a  woman  trained  to  understand  and, 
above  all,  feel  the  wonder  of  existence  ;  imagine  the 
sudden  increase  of  that  wonder  that  should  come  to 
her  when  she  is  herself  the  bearer  of  a  new  life,  when 
that  new  life  that  she  has  been  expecting  is  at  last 
born,  when  it  grows  in  mind  and  body  at  her  breast, 
when  its  little  life  looks  into  hers,  and  when,  day  by 
day,  during  the  first  years  of  toddling  childhood,  the 
mind  unfolds  to  a  mother's  love,  as  a  child  mind 
opens  to  no  other  influence  in  the  world.  And 
though  the  father  can  only  distantly  share  in  this, 
as  compared  with  the  true  mother,  he  brings  from 
the  world  a  fresh  influence,  and  it  is  the  reaction  of 
two  minds  with  one  common  aim,  and  yet  approach- 
ing this  aim  from  different  points  of  view,  that  give 
charm  and  beauty  to  life  which  could  not  be  ob- 
tained by  two  men  or  two  women  living  under  the 
same  roof.  This  evolution  testifies  to  when  it  super- 
sedes the  love  of  man  to  man  in  Greek  times  by  the 


ioo         The  Nature  of  Woman 

love  of  man  and  woman,  which  from  Dante  onwards 
has  belonged  to  our  own  and  has  been  the  great  ideal 
of  life. 

The  Application  to  Human  Life  To-day 

So  far  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  sex  is  among 
animals  a  real  evolutional  character,  that  differences 
between  men  and  women  will  increase  rather  than 
decline  with  advancing  civilisation,  because  this 
specialisation  of  sex  is  necessary,  in  order  that  a 
higher  type  of  life  can  be  originated,  nurtured, 
undergo  uninterrupted  development,  and  be  born 
into  a  world  where,  in  its  long  immaturity,  it  can  be 
cared  for,  and,  lastly,  that  specialisation  does  not 
sacrifice  the  individual  to  the  race. 

There  is  no  mistaking  the  teaching  of  Nature  and 
her  demands.  Woman  stores,  man  spends.  It  is 
because  woman  stores  that  at  nearly  all  periods  of 
life  her  chances  of  living  are  greater  than  the  man's, 
unless  she  takes  up  callings  that  draw  upon  her  re- 
serve strength ;  her  digestive  organs  are  relatively  to 
her  body  weight  as  large,  or  larger,  than  the  man's, 
her  lungs  are  smaller,  and  her  blood  supply  is  prob- 
ably less,  and  certainly  carries  less  oxygen ;  she 
spends  less  than  the  man  under  healthy  conditions  of 
life,  because  oxygen  is  the  great  spending  agency. 
If,  however,  she  becomes  dyspeptic,  so  that  her  food 
digests  badly,  she  is  opening  the  door  to  the  time  of 
ill-prepared  motherhood,  because,  as  her  future 
child  will  draw  its  nourishment  from  her  blood,  its 
chances  of  well-nourished  life  are  smaller ;  as  are  her 
own  if  that  unborn  child  draws  from  a  faulty  blood 
supply,  in  which  half-digested  products  circulate  to 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance 

her  cells  and  to  the  child's.  It  must  be  obvious,  too, 
that  in  the  same  way  the  child's  natural  food  will 
suffer  after  it  is  born,  when  fed,  as  it  is  or  should  be, 
by  its  mother's  milk,  which  would  thus  be  formed 
from  an  impure  blood.  Yet  no  real  substitute  can  be 
found  for  this  which  she  can  give,  that  is  always 
blood  temperature,  that  is  clean  and  sweet  and  pure 
and  free  from  germs  of  disease,  that  is  adapted  to 
the  child's  needs.  The  mother's  life  must  be 
quiescent,  free  from  worry,  free  from  competitive 
struggles,  free  during  the  time  of  her  motherhood 
from  work  that  compels  her  to  labour  regardless  of 
Nature's  call  for  frequent  rests.  This  is  merely 
hygienic  physiology. 

We  have  seen  something  of  the  lesson  of  the 
primary  functions  of  motherhood.  It  is  because  the 
child  is  of  so  high  an  order  that  its  demand  on  its 
mother  and  its  mother's  life  is  so  insistent  and  life- 
long ;  we  have  seen  that  the  secondary  characteristics 
of  women  and  men  reveal  that  in  the  human  species 
sex  is  more  insistent  in  its  requirements,  and  has 
moulded  our  bodies  to  its  needs.  What  lesson  have 
tertiary  sex  characters  to  teach  ?  They  teach  that 
the  male  is  the  fighting,  that  is  the  active  animal, 
over  nearly  the  whole  field  of  insects,  nearly  the 
whole  fields  of  fishes  and  reptiles  and  birds,  and 
over  the  whole  range  of  mammalian  life  it  is  the 
male  that  fights,  the  male  that  strives,  the  female 
that  is  quiescent.  What  is  it  in  man  ?  Man  is,  and 
always  has  been,  the  fighter,  and  except  for  the  prob- 
ably mythical  Amazons,  no  race  has  bred  a  permanent 
fighting  female  type.  Even  the  Spartans  never 
attained  to  this ;  it  was  the  men  who  fought.  In 


i.02          The  Nature  of  Woman 

man  war  has  been  slowly,  and  is  being  slowly,  super- 
seded by  industrial  competition.  What  part  has 
woman  taken  in  these  two  processes  ?  The  great 
struggle  for  victory  in  war  and  in  industry  turns 
mainly  on  invention  and  originality.  The  great 
warriors,  from  Hannibal  to  Napoleon,  have  been 
men  ;  the  inventors  of  war  weapons  have  been  men  ; 
the  inventors  of  horse  and  steam  ploughs  and  of 
agricultural  implements  were  men,  not  women  ; 
spinning  and  weaving  were  in  the  hands  of  women, 
but  men,  inventing  spinning  and  weaving  machines, 
took  the  spinning  and  weaving  processes  out  of  the 
home  ;  medicine  was  for  some  centuries  in  women's 
hands,  but  men  invented  surgical  instruments,  not 
women,  even  those  instruments  specially  designed 
to  help  women  in  their  childbirth  cares,  the  new 
drugs  that  have  been  introduced  have  been  by  men, 
even  chloroform  and  anaesthetics,  that  have  so  much 
softened  woman's  special  difficulties,  Simpson  or 
American  pioneers,  it  is  still  men.  All  the  great 
engineers  have  been  men,  even  the  inventors  of 
sewing  machines.  All  important  cooking  appliances 
have  been  men's  work  :  gas  stoves,  coal  ranges,  oil 
stoves  and  spirit.  Pottery,  architecture,  hygiene, 
and  sanitary  science,  men,  not  women.  Furniture 
is  mostly  man's  design,  Chippendale,  Sheraton,  or 
some  other.  It  is  man  always  that  has  done  the 
creative  work.  It  will  not  do  to  argue  that  women 
have  had  no  opportunities  in  cooking,  in  medicine, 
in  household  designing,  in  spinning  and  weaving, 
for  their  opportunity  was  originally  greater  than 
men's.  It  will  not  do  for  another  reason,  because 
Genius  makes  its  own  opportunity.  There  is  a 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  103 

difference,  a  fundamental  difference,  of  mind,  and 
nothing  else  that  can  account  for  so  invariable  a  law 
present  in  all  ages  and  in  all  climes. 

In  music  we  see  the  same  truth,  whether  it  is  in 
the  development  of  an  instrument,  a  violin,  a  piano,  a 
bugle,  or  a  flute,  or  an  organ,  the  inventors  are  men, 
not  women.  And  in  genius.  In  music  there  are  no 
great  women  geniuses,  though  there  have  been 
women  musicians.  There  have  been  no  great 
women  artists  whose  genius  commands  the  world, 
though  thousands  of  artists ;  no  great  poets,  ex- 
cept one  woman,  Sappho,  and  extremely  little  is 
known  of  her,  but  perhaps  millions  of  women  who 
have  written,  secretly  or  openly,  verses  and  poeti- 
cal thoughts.  In  science  the  great  names  are 
again  exclusively  men,  and  in  philosophy  the  same. 
Bach,  Handel,  Beethoven,  Mozart ;  Phidias,  Michael 
Angelo,  Raphael,  Turner,  Watts ;  Homer,  Shake- 
speare, Goethe,  Dante,  Milton,  Browning,  Words- 
worth; Aristotle,  Roger  Bacon,  Harvey,  Newton, 
Darwin,  Hippocrates,  Sydenham,  and  John  Hunter  ; 
Socrates  and  Plato,  Francis  Bacon  and  Descartes, 
Locke,  Berkeley,  Kant ;  Confucius,  Buddha,  Christ. 
How  foolish  to  assert  that  of  these  names,  from  the 
East  and  the  West  of  the  world's  life,  in  all  lands  and 
in  all  climes,  under  all  conditions  of  civilisation,  it  is 
accident  that  they  are  men ;  that,  given  opportunity 
for  women,  there  might  have  been  women  too.  Even 
in  cookery  we  have  a  Count  Rumford.  Was  there 
ever  a  time  when  women  were  suppressed  to  this 
extent  ?  Was  there  ever  a  time  when  genius  was 
not  ?  If  a  woman  could  be  a  Cleopatra,  dogmatic, 
tyrannical,  might  she  not  have  been  a  feminine 


104         The  Nature  of  Woman 

Marcus  Aurelius  ?  In  actual  historic  fact  there 
never  has  been  a  century  where  woman  has  not  had 
much  liberty,  where  the  opportunity  could  easily 
have  been  made,  had  women  had  the  capacity  and 
the  desire.  Here  is  a  comparison  far  more  certain 
and  unchallengeable  than  that  Germany  is  musical 
or  that  England  is  scientific.  All  the  great  lines 
of  creative  and  inventive  thought  within  historic 
times  have  been  made  by  men,  not  by  women. 

But  if  a  glance  is  given  over  these  names  two  great 
exceptions  to  the  word  creative,  as  distinctive  of 
them,  may  be  rightly  and  wrongly  made  in  Homer 
and  Shakespeare.  It  is  doubtful  if  Homer  added 
one  original,  one  creative  thought  to  Greek  life, 
Shakespeare  certainly  added  nothing  to  English 
thought  or  English  life.  They  were  scenic  geniuses, 
not  creative,  and  from  this  point  of  view  one  ought 
to  exclude  them  from  our  list,  and  yet  one  knows  if 
one  did  so  a  gap  would  be  felt  at  once.  And  the 
reason  lies  surely  in  this,  that  Homer  made  the  Greek 
speech  expressionable,  Shakespeare  did  the  same  for 
English,  and  to  a  less  extent  Dante  for  Italian, 
Goethe  for  German.  Dante  also  was  creative  on 
the  thought  of  love,  Goethe  in  a  far  lesser  way 
in  science,  but  one  real  grandeur  of  their  names  is 
that  they  gave  flexible,  free  voice  to  a  national 
tongue,  a  language  that  had  been  halting  became 
free ;  in  this  they  were  creative. 

In  Homer,  Dante,  and  Shakespeare,  a  grandeur 
not  less  impressive  is  their  scenic  power ;  they 
depict  rather  than  originate.  We  see  the  Greek  life 
glorified,  it  is  true,  made  to  move  and  act  as  in  a 
stately  pageantry,  but  still  it  is  Greek  life,  and  not 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  105 

Homer's  ideal  of  it,  that  we  see  in  Homer.  Had 
Homer  been  asked,  he  might  have  agreed  with 
Socrates  and  Euripides  and  other  Greeks  that  his 
picture  of  the  gods  was  ungodlike,  but  his  answer 
would  have  been,  "  It  is  Greece,  none  the  less." 
Had  Shakespeare  been  asked  whether  Falstaff  was  a 
noble  enough  character,  he  would  have  said,  "  No, 
but  he  is  English."  Dante  was  national,  but  not  in 
this  sense,  Goethe  was  national,  but  in  a  different,  or 
one  might  have  almost  said  a  more  indifferent,  cold, 
contemplative  way  than  either.  Dante  would  have 
felt,  "  Italy  must  be  this,  I  love  her  " ;  Homer  felt 
"  Greece  is,  that  is  enough  "  ;  and  Shakespeare,  like 
Homer,  "  It  is  my  England." 

A  woman  who  loves  a  man  feels  as  Homer  felt,  as 
Shakespeare  felt,  not  in  their  creative  language  side, 
which  belongs  to  manhood  and  manliness,  but  in 
their  scenic,  contemplative  side.  Greece  is,  England 
is,  my  husband  is,  it  is  enough,  I  see,  I  know.  The 
gods  of  Greece  were  the  shadow  of  Greece,  the 
Parthenon  and  its  joy  of  life  its  glory  ;  Homer  knew 
this,  perhaps,  better  even  than  Socrates,  and  he  saw 
that  the  glory  and  its  shadow  are  one,  Greece,  as  he 
knew  her,  and  it  sufficed.  A  real  wife  knows  her 
husband  as  the  husband  does  not  even  know  himself, 
with  his  littlenesses,  with  his  shadows,  but  also — for 
there  is  this  side  in  all  men,  if  it  can  be  reached — its 
glory.  The  glory  requires  at  times  much  seeing  ; 
sometimes  because  it  is  great  but  hidden  in  the  re- 
cesses of  a  silent  mind  ;  sometimes  because  the  glory 
is  small  and  overlaid  with  fierce,  rough,  broken  litter, 
jagged  and  dangerous,  and  to  the  outer  world  the 
one  man  is  a  dead  mass,  large  but  incomprehensible, 


io6          The  Nature  of  Woman 

and  the  other  a  creature,  scarce  a  man,  to  be  avoided, 
to  be  shunned.  Tell  the  real  wife — for  a  woman's 
genuine  love  goes  down  to  the  reality  that  is  good 
and  reaches  it,  much  or  little  as  it  is  there — tell  the 
real  wife,  as  Socrates  might  have  told  Homer,  that 
his  gods,  her  husband's,  were  ungodlike,  and  she 
would  not  say  "  I  know,"  but  she  would  know.  Tell 
her  the  like  of  her  son,  and  she  might  be  angry, 
because  she  would  be  less  sure  and  because  she  takes 
her  husband  as  he  is,  but  she  wishes  for  her  son,  as 
Dante  of  his  country,  "  My  son  must  be  this,  I  love 
him."  That  is  why  a  noble  mother  may  err  some- 
times, in  spite  of  her  great  love  and  her  insight,  over 
her  son  ;  but  a  noble  wife  almost  never  over  her 
husband ;  "  My  husband  is,  I  see,  I  know  him,  rock 
and  cranny,  crack  and  crevice."  A  husband,  even 
when  he  is  f arseeing  and  true  and  loyal,  never  knows 
his  wife  in  this  perfect  way  ;  and  the  wife,  good 
woman  as  she  may  be,  does  not  know  herself.  A 
woman's  genius  is  scenic,  therefore  ;  human  charac- 
ter is  seen  by  her  as  the  higher  artist  sees  a  landscape, 
as  he  paints  an  old-world  village,  while  its  evil  odours 
from  an  old  pool  near  by  come  to  him  as  he  paints. 
The  man  wants  the  odours  gone,  and  sometimes,  in 
destroying  the  odour  he  sweeps  away  the  beauty  too. 
This  is  the  same  reason  why  a  woman  never  really 
quite  believes  in  perfection  of  character.  She  ad- 
mires gold,  and  can  judge  it  when  she  sees  it,  but  in 
a  state  of  nature,  here  on  this  earth,  she  always 
expects  to  see  it  as  rough  ore,  alloyed,  not  pure. 
She  knows  that  the  ore  is  richer  in  some  natures 
than  in  others,  but  also  that  in  none  is  it  wholly 
pure  ;  if  it  counterfeits  purity  it  is  a  sham.  This  is 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  107 

a  wise  axiom  of  a  woman  that  she  follows,  and  a 
man  seldom  does,  when  the  woman's  being  is  un- 
spoiled by  a  barren  intellectual  training  that  has 
taught  her  to  distrust  her  powers. 

There  are  two  fields,  consequently,  where  women 
might  have  been  expected  to  succeed,  and  where,  as 
a  fact,  they  have  succeeded :  in  fiction,  the  scenic 
portrayal  of  life  in  words ;  on  the  stage,  the  scenic 
portrayal  of  life  in  actions  and  spoken  words ;  and  a 
Jane  Austen  or  a  Charlotte  Bronte  can  compare  with 
a  Scott  or  a  Dickens,  an  Ellen  Terry  with  a  Forbes 
Robertson.  It  may  be  asked  how  it  is  that  man,  a 
creative  being,  can  have  this  scenic  power  too,  that  a 
Shakespeare  or  a  Homer,  men,  can  have  that  which 
belongs  above  all  to  women  ;  and  the  answer  consists, 
I  would  suggest,  in  two  considerations.  One,  the 
scenic  power  necessary  for  the  drama  is  less  than  for 
life.  An  absolutely  faithful  drama  is  not  possible, 
and  if  it  were,  it  would  be  too  harrowing  to  human 
feelings  to  witness  it.  This  allows  the  lower  scenic 
powers  of  man  in  this  direction  to  find  an  outlet. 
Two,  even  scenic  thought,  to  be  presented  to  the 
world,  needs  some  creative  skill,  the  skill  of  selection 
and  rejection,  which,  while  it  presents  a  picture  to 
the  world,  makes  it  by  this  selection  a  little  false  in 
doing  so.  For  both  of  these  reasons  a  man  has  an 
opportunity  in  woman's  fields,  but  it  is  only  because 
the  topmost  power  of  womanhood  is  unrepresent- 
able to  any  but  the  woman  herself.  This  is  one 
reason,  I  am  convinced,  why  the  unspoiled  woman 
by  her  mere  presence  makes  her  greatness  felt,  and 
why  a  test  of  that  greatness  in  action  is  not  demanded. 

It  might  have  been  thought  that  in  the  scenic 


io8          The  Nature  of  Woman 

outlook  the  woman,  taking  this  whole  view  of  exist- 
ence, would  have  been  fitted  as  no  man  could  be  to 
take  the  whole  outlook  which  leads  by  an  external 
confirmation  or  rejection  of  life  to  what  is  called  a 
faith,  and  it  is,  of  course,  a  noteworthy  fact  that 
to-day  it  is  the  women,  rather  than  the  men,  who 
support  the  churches  and  the  chapels,  who  form  far 
more  than  half  of  the  attendants  at  the  services  ;  but 
in  this,  too,  woman's  influence  is  indirect,  her  mind 
is  rapid,  deep-seeing,  and  intuitional,  not  slow  and 
reasoning — process-forming — as  man's.  She  does  not, 
therefore,  construct  a  view  of  life,  she  simply  sees  the 
view,  and  she  knows,  though  she  frequently  does  not 
know  why.  In  the  past,  as  the  friendships  of  Buddha, 
of  Christ,  of  Socrates,  show,  though  this  is  least  true 
of  Christ,  men  drew  their  inspiration  from  men ; 
to-day,  while  they  look  to  other  men  for  a  critical 
acceptance  or  rejection  of  their  teachings,  they  look 
to  the  woman  for  a  belief  in  or  a  rejection  of  them 
and  their  views  as  men.  And  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  part  of  the  lack  of  religious  feeling  in  an  age 
that  is  permeated  by  religious  thought  and  question- 
ing is  due  to  woman's  dewomanising  modern  educa- 
tion, which  teaches  her  to  value  mathematics  and 
reason  instead  of  literature  and  life.  A  woman 
knows  her  husband  by  feeling,  sight,  and  insight,  not 
by  reason  ;  and  that  is  also  how  she  really  knows  the 
world  ;  and  so  long  as  she  can  see  the  sunlight,  catch 
the  scent  of  the  morning  air,  and  the  beauty  of 
flowers,  and  feel  her  life  pulsate  to  the  life  around 
her,  she  knows  that  the  alloy  in  life  is  but  the  incident 
and  the  true  metal  the  reality,  and  she  has  faith. 
Rationalise  her,  and  this  faith  is  gone,  and  man's  too, 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  109 

for  the  influence  of  the  mother's  mind,  the  wife's, 
the  sister's,  and  women  friends  create  an  atmosphere 
of  belief  that  is  true  and  contagious,  from  which  the 
man  cannot,  and  as  a  fact  does  not  wish  to,  escape. 
But  the  modern  schoolgirl,  with  her  standards  of 
learning  which  she  must  pass,  and  which  at  best  are 
superficial,  and  which  she,  like  the  schoolboy,  almost 
completely  forgets  a  few  years  later,  though  the 
pedagogic  influence  remains,  tries  to  take  in  the 
universe  as  if  it  were  a  problem  of  geometry, 
despises  home  life,  from  which  real  inspiration  would 
come,  and  as  a  lady  clerk  or  an  anaemic,  tired  shop 
assistant  brings  home  to  her  family,  and  afterwards 
to  her  husband,  a  tired  mind  and  a  broken  spirit, 
broken  not  in  the  higher  religious  sense  of  being 
humbled  before  the  sublime,  but  because  her  natural 
powers  have  been  ruined  by  a  false  scheme  of  life. 
Whether  this  is  entirely  so  or  not,  I  am  convinced 
that  a  return  to  Nature's  thought  of  woman  in 
education  is  one  aspect  by  which  a  revival  of  re- 
ligion quite  consistent  with  scientific  truth  may  be 
brought  about. 

To  return  to  our  main  thought :  the  evolution  of 
animal  life,  and  of  man,  and  of  individual  man 
demonstrate  the  increasing  importance  of  sex ; 
modern  physiology  demonstrates  the  paramount 
need  for  a  quiet,  restful,  healthy  life  in  the  mother  ; 
a  restfulness  and  quiet  and  a  health  which  is  a  life- 
time's culture,  not  to  be  acquired  by  a  fortnight's 
quiet  before  the  birth  of  a  child.  The  facts  of  a 
study  of  sex  demonstrate  that  the  combative,  active 
side  is  the  male's  throughout  animal  life,  and  of 
human  life  that  the  active  fighting  side  and  the 


no          The  Nature  of  Woman 

active  creative  and  inventive,  mental  side  are  man's, 
not  woman's. 

The  Venus  of  Milo,  the  Sistine  Madonna  of 
Raphael,  the  Beatrice  of  Dante  have  not  come  down 
to  us  through  the  centuries  for  nothing.  A  Lucretia 
Borgia  might  have  come  down,  not  these.  The 
great  calm  and  repose  of  the  Greek  Venus,  the  great 
quiet  and  rest  of  the  Madonna's  face,  the  gentle 
presence  of  Beatrice  are  not  accidental  portrayals  of 
the  type  of  woman  who  is  rather  than  does ;  they 
are  the  ideals  that  mankind  has  treasured  and  still 
accepts.  Dante,  Raphael,  and  the  Greeks  saw 
nothing  of  the  law  of  affectability,  which  proves  that 
woman  reacts  and  responds  to  her  surroundings, 
while  man  tends  to  override  them ;  but  they  set  up 
ideals  in  conformity  with  it.  It  is  not  an  accident 
that  all  three  aesthetic  types  agree  in  spirit,  and  that 
these  agree  with  the  teaching  of  science,  woman  a 
presence,  man  a  force.  Nature  says,  "  Two  types 
of  body  and  mind  I  need,"  womanly  and  manly,  a 
state  of  being  for  motherhood  and  for  a  measure  of 
existence,  a  state  of  doing  for  achievement ;  and  for 
a  moment  our  age  says  one,  the  woman's,  is  to  be 
lost,  but  it  is  Nature  that  will  prevail. 

Since  animal  life  began  its  long  upward 
evolution,  since  sex  appeared,  and  it  appeared 
very  early  on  this  earth,  sex  has  slowly  differ- 
entiated itself  into  two  types,  male  and  female, 
whose  minds  and  bodies  have  grown  more  mascu- 
line and  more  feminine  in  this  upward  path. 
In  the  animal  world  the  direction  has  been  male- 
dominated  until  man,  and  man-directed  ever  since, 
in  the  beginning,  and  it  will  be  so  in  the  end.  Man 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  1 1 1 

directed  in  his  creative  strength ;  none  the  less,  it  is 
the  woman  who  sees.  And  what  I  ask  myself  as  this 
chapter  closes,  as  I  reiterate  thoughts  that  I  know 
are  the  reader's  thoughts  as  well  as  mine,  keeping 
before  one  the  ideal  of  calm  and  rest  for  the 
woman  and  of  energy  for  the  man,  ideals  based 
on  our  natural  desires,  what  I  ask  myself  is,  Have 
we  as  a  people,  having  gone  far  astray  from  the 
natural  healthy  ideal  of  womanhood  and  manhood, 
have  we  the  courage  to  return,  on  a  higher  plane, 
with  wider  knowledge,  to  the  old  thought,  that  is 
healthy  and  sane  ?  I  cannot  say,  but  I  know  that, 
whether  we  do  or  not,  the  world  will.  Rightly  under- 
stood, the  Bible  saying  stands ;  "  In  the  beginning 
.  .  .  male  and  female  created  He  them,"  in  body,  but 
not  less  in  mind,  in  the  beginning  and  in  the  end  ; 
but  will  modern  England  have  the  courage  to  accept 
it  ?  I  ask  myself  this  question,  but  I  cannot  say. 

Note 
Statistics  on  the  Home  and  on  Infant  Feeding 

An  Englishman  likes  facts,  and  because  he  believes  that  statistics 
are  facts,  he  is  often  prone  to  attach  a  quite  exaggerated  importance 
to  them.  When  not  prepared  for  the  purposes  of  propaganda  they 
may  represent  what  are  the  investigator's  own  belief  of  what  are 
the  facts,  but  statistics  always,  even  when  scientifically  prepared — 
and  this  they  very  seldom  are — represent  a  formalised  statement  of 
something  that  cannot  be  scientifically  formalised. 

When  I  was  a  medical  student,  I  tried  to  acquaint  myself  fully 
with  vaccination  and  anti-vaccination  literature,  and  I  have  still  on 
my  shelves  the  books  which  testify  to  my  endeavour  to  equip  my- 
self honestly  for  advice  on  the  subject.  The  study  of  some  forty 
books,  some  of  them  filled  with  statistics  from  end  to  end,  did  not 
convince  me  either  of  the  vaccination  or  the  anti-vaccination  case. 


1 1 2          The  Nature  of  Woman 

I  had  seen  no  case  of  smallpox  myself,  for  there  are  so  few  to  be 
seen,  and  I  went  into  practice  still  in  much  doubt,  until  I  worked 
in  an  outbreak  myself  and  saw  the  disease  and  vaccinated  some 
patients  and  studied  others  who  had  been  vaccinated,  when  I  saw 
with  my  own  eyes  five  indisputable  sets  of  data  which  drove  me 
to  five  as  indisputable  conclusions,  i.  Vaccination,  under  modern 
conditions,  is  attended  with  very  little  risk  indeed,  and  there  is 
no  known  alternative  of  a  pleasanter  nature  to  offer.  2.  Smallpox 
is  a  very  serious  disease  in  the  un vaccinated  now.  3.  Some  people, 
a  very  few,  are  practically  immune  by  nature  to  smallpox,  and 
for  themselves  need  not  be  vaccinated  if  we  could  tell  who  they  are, 
but  because  they  take  the  disease  so  slightly  and  can  pass  it  on  to 
others  in  a  more  severe  form,  they  require  to  be  vaccinated  for  the 
protection  of  others  as  much  as  the  susceptible.  4.  Vaccination 
does  protect.  5.  Smallpox  is  an  infectious  disease  like  scarlet 
fever,  not  like  typhoid,  and  therefore  hygiene  and  isolation  are 
insufficient  to  guard  the  community  against  the  disease.  And 
these  are  the  five  reasons  which  convince  doctors  of  experience, 
knowledge,  and  judgment.  The  reader  may  or  may  not  agree 
with  the  illustration  ;  what  I  merely  want  to  point  out  is  this  : 

Statistics  did  not  convince  me,  they  were  so  plausibly  expressed 
on  both  sides,  that  ivithout  my  own  experience  of  the  disease  I  could  not 
have  judged  which  was  true,  nor  do  I  believe  any  statistician,  un- 
armed with  this  experience,  could  have  done  so. 

Statistics  on  the  home  and  on  infant-feeding  are  like  vaccination ; 
they  are  dangerous  plausible  presentations  of  fact  always  having 
some  truth  in  them,  if  they  are  honestly  compiled ;  always,  because  they 
are  formalised  statements  of  fact  and  not  descriptions  of  fact,  much 
that  is  misleading  and  false. 

Statistics  of  the  home  prove  nothing  unless  they  are  drawn 
up,  not  by  somebody  who  makes  a  house-to-house  visitation  and 
spends  half  an  hour  or  less  in  the  front  parlour  kept  only  for 
visitors  and  Sundays,  but  by  a  man  or  woman  who  has  visited 
frequently  over  many  months  the  same  home,  and  has  called  un- 
expectedly and  been  invited  at  different  times  into  every  room  of  the 
tenement  or  house  occupied  by  the  family.  The  only  people  who 
really  know  homes  in  this  way  are  doctors,  nurses,  health  visitors, 
clergymen,  in  special  practices,  perhaps,  some  solicitors,  and  some- 
times insurance  visitors  from  large  provident  societies.  See  first 
whether  a  writer  on  the  home  is  one  of  these  ;  if  not,  his  data  cannot 
be  personally  reliable,  though  he  may  have  acquired  second-hand 


Evolution  of  Sex  and  its  Significance  1 13 

knowledge  of  some  importance,  of  which  he  will  not  be  able  to 
judge  the  value. 

There  are  some  women  whose  feelings  are  against  home  life, 
who  ought  not  to  marry,  who  are  cold  in  their  natures  to  the 
thought  of  a  child  born  to  them,  who  think  of  marrying  a  man  in 
as  matter-of-fact  a  way  as  they  would  think  of  living  with  another 
woman,  and  there  are  men  of  a  similar  character.  These  ought 
not  to  marry,  and  will  never  make  a  home,  though  the  rooms  they 
live  in  may  be  habitable  and  neat.  There  are  some  women  and 
some  men  who  have  such  a  low  standard  of  life  that  dirt  and  dis- 
order and  badly  cooked  and  imperfect  food  do  not  trouble  them. 
There  are  some  women  and  some  men  who  are  of  such  a  low 
mental  stature  that  nothing  would  induce  them  to  care  for  the  artistic, 
the  musical,  the  literary,  the  scientific,  parental  and  hygienic 
possibilities  of  the  home  as  an  individual  centre  of  life  for  them- 
selves and  their  children.  The  majority  of  men  and  women 
are  not  like  this  ;  when  they  neglect  the  home  it  is  from  necessity, 
or  more  often  because  they  do  not  know  the  possibilities  of  the 
home  ;  but  the  minority  is  a  substantial  one,  and  in  certain  classes 
of  the  nation,  and  even  in  one  street  as  compared  with  another 
neighbouring  street,  may  form  the  majority  in  that  class  or  district, 
and  statistics  not  compiled  to  show  these  different  types  of  home 
inmate  will  be  full  of  fallacies  and  errors.  But  the  woman  who 
knows  what  the  home  is  worth,  how  to  enlarge  it  and  make  it 
vital,  and  who  is  a  mother  in  spirit  as  well  as  being  a  child-bearer 
in  bodily  actuality,  will  make  of  this  home,  and  does  make  of  it, 
a  markedly  different  place.  If  she  comes  to  it  tired  at  the  end  of 
a  day's  outside  labour,  having  let  others  do  her  work,  making  the 
outside  work  her  life-vocation,  her  home  must  suffer.  I  am  not 
denying  that  there  is  immense  need  for  improvement  in  woman's 
home  life,  but  I  do  ask  the  reader  to  beware  of  vague  talk  about 
the  impracticability  of  the  home,  of  the  statement — I  repeat  a  false 
one — that  the  wage-earning  mother  and  wife  has  as  good  a  home 
as  the  non-wage-earner.  There  are  some  women  who  keep  the 
home  spirit  in  spite  of  an  outside  occupation,  there  are  others  who 
have  no  home  spirit  though  they  are  in  the  home,  but  that  the 
home-loving  woman  can  do  better  for  herself,  her  husband,  and  her 
children  by  being  out  of  it  rather  than  in  it  is  one  of  those  foolish 
fallacies  that  nothing  but  statistics  and  their  mad  implications 
could  ever  have  made  us  believe. 

The  statistics   on  infant   feeding  are  alike  fallacious.     Let  me 


H4          The  Nature  of  Woman 

merely  point  out  two  facts  for  the  reader  to  remember.  One,  all 
scientific  artificial  foods  are  avowedly  made  and  prepared  as  ap- 
proximations to  human  milk,  and  the  nearer  a  food  does  so 
approach  the  human  the  better  it  is  recognised  to  be  ;  there  is  no 
other  medical  test  of  the  quality  of  an  infant's  artificial  food  but  this 
one.  Two,  milk  for  human  babies  can  only  be  prepared,  when  it  is 
not  the  human  mother's  milk,  by  milk  from  other  animal  life ;  it  is 
troublesome  to  prepare,  is  contaminated  in  preparation,  and  costly. 
Is  it  a  sane  proceeding  to  substitute  for  the  natural  human  mother's 
food  for  her  child  an  imperfect  substitute  prepared  from  another 
and  lower  form  of  animal  life,  and  fitted  by  Nature  for  that 
form  ?  It  is  necessary  to  point  out  these  plain  facts,  because 
mathematicians,  and  sometimes  statisticians  of  some  note,  have 
sometimes  made  the  reality  and  the  natural  seem  the  unreal  and 
incredible. 


Chapter  VII 

The  Next  Step  :   Economics  and  Biology 

AST  century  was  an  economic  century,  and  a 
preparatory  biological  one.  Smith's  "  Wealth 
of  Nations  "  had  prepared  the  way  for  Ricardo  and 
Mill ;  and  the  first  effect  of  Darwin's,  Huxley's,  and 
Spencer's  work,  but  not  its  real  final  effect,  being 
against  religion,  robbed  religion  of  its  strength 
to  hold  back  the  economic,  rationalistic  doctrines  of 
supply  and  demand  and  a  hard,  rationalistic,  un- 
scientific view  of  life.  It  ought  to  have  been  a  very 
obvious  truth,  one  would  have  thought,  that  the 
laws  which  regulate  money,  prices,  markets,  and 
exchange  of  goods  must  be  different  laws  from  those 
which  regulate  a  healthy  blood  supply  in  a  human 
body ;  and  that,  whether  one  believes  in  an  immortal 
soul  and  a  destiny  for  individual  man,  or  in  a  mind 
that  disintegrates  completely  at  bodily  death,  yet, 
while  a  human  being  lives,  there  are  certain  psycho- 
logical or  mind  laws,  certain  mind  feelings  (appetites 
and  emotions),  certain  other  powers  even  beyond 
these,  that  require  a  knowledge  of  life  which  the 
science  of  life,  biology,  including,  as  it  does,  body 
and  mind  studies,  could  have  supplied  ;  and  that, 
therefore,  a  completer  view  of  society  could  have 
been  obtained  if  biologists  and  economists  had 

"5 


n6         The  Nature  of  Woman 

come  together  as  social  students  to  teach  mankind 
its  ideal  of  social  life.  Educational  influences  might 
in  addition  have  been  considered,  as  well  as  the  geo- 
graphical potentiality  of  the  soil.  It  might  have  been 
thought  that  these  would  have  been  common-sense 
practical  conclusions,  involving  no  great  or  technical 
knowledge,  and  that  a  man  trained  to  logic  as  Mill 
was  would  have  seen  such  a  simple,  obvious,  common- 
sense  and  necessary  scientific  proposition.  As  a  fact, 
neither  he  nor  his  contemporaries  except  Comte 
saw  anything  of  the  kind.  They  saw  men  and 
women  who  could  be  reasoned,  ignorantly,  about  ; 
men  and  women,  all  alike,  who  in  theory  always 
obeyed  rationalistic  laws,  who  never  suffered  from 
disease,  who  never  felt  overstrain,  who  never  felt  a 
desire  to  do  an  act  that  could  not  be  explained, 
justified,  or  blamed  by  the  obvious  reasons  of  a 
logician.  Of  course,  Mill  would  have  denied  this 
attitude,  had  it  been  put  to  him.  The  fact  remains, 
none  the  less,  that  there  is  not  a  single  sentence,  that 
I  can  remember,  of  applied  biology,  of  the  problems 
of  human  type  and  temperament  of  body  and  mind, 
of  the  problems  of  health  and  disease,  in  his  work. 
He  never  saw  practically  the  need  to  understand  the 
biological  sub-sciences,  or  even  the  practical  eco- 
nomic study  of  prices  of  articles  sold  in  the  daily 
exchanges  of  life.  He  believed  in  a  reasoned  view 
of  existence,  quite  apart  from  a  study  of  it  as  a 
science,  and  hence  his  curious  views  about  men  and 
women  and  life  generally.  It  was  this  unscientific, 
and  in  the  larger  sense  illogical  and  unrational,  atti- 
tude that  justified  Ruskin's  strictures  and  Dickens's 
ridicule.  Nevertheless,  Mill  is  not  to  be  too  greatly 


Economics  and  Biology         117 

blamed,  for  this  blindness  was  largely  an  industrial 
attitude  of  the  times,  from  which  we  ourselves  have 
not  even  yet  completely  recovered  ;  but  it  is  not 
necessary  to  plead  to-day  that  there  is  a  biological 
aspect  of  life. 

The  Biological  Demand 

What  are  the  biological  demands  which  the 
biologist  wishes  to  make  of  the  economist  in  regard 
to  woman  ?  They  can  be  probably  already  fore- 
shadowed by  the  reader. 

The  physiological  needs  of  motherhood  demand 
non-employment  after  married  life,  some  would 
assert  for  those  married  women  only  who  have 
children.  This  restriction  is,  however,  unsatisfac- 
tory, as  it  might  tend  to  discourage  one  of  the  most 
important  aims  of  marriage,  parentage.  The 
married  woman  with  a  husband  living  and  capa- 
ble should  not  be  a  wage-earner  for  the  following 
reasons  : 

I.  After  the  third  month  of  expectant  mother- 
hood, in  some  women  earlier,  slight  and  sometimes 
considerable  interferences  of  health  take  place,  and 
it  is  essential  that  for  all  women  a  composed,  restful 
life,  not  idle,  but  with  activities  taken  quietly,  at  the 
woman's  own  time  and  in  the  woman's  own  way,  are 
essential  for  reasons  discussed  in  the  last  chapter. 
The  home  is  the  only  place  where  this  is  possible. 

It  is  no  longer  arguable  scientifically  that  the 
natural  food  of  the  infant,  for  its  first  nine  months  of 
life  after  birth,  is  its  mother's,  and  that  no  artificial 
food  can  equal  this  from  any  point  of  view.  Thus 


n8          The  Nature  of  Woman 

fifteen  months'  absence  from  factory  or  other  occu- 
pational life  outside  the  home  is  essential,  not  for  the 
larger  thought  of  motherhood  only,  but  simply  for 
the  bearing  and  rearing  of  the  child  during  this 
period. 

If  we  assume  only  three  children  to  each  family, 
this  means  on  an  average  that  in  the  first  six  years  of 
married  life  the  wife  and  mother  would  be  pre- 
cluded from  industrial  or  arduous  professional  em- 
ployment. But  the  matter  does  not  end  here,  for 
those  six  years  would  be  years  in  which  a  new  attitude 
of  mind  would,  or  ought  to  have  developed  in  the 
mother,  and  her  fitness  for  her  former  work  would 
for  this  reason  have  deteriorated. 

2.  For  general  reasons  it  is  now  granted  that 
school  is  a  mistake  for  children  under  five  years  of 
age,  and  there  can  be  no  serious  question  of  the 
advantage  of  good  home  life,  owing  to  less  danger 
from  infection ;   of  the  smaller  stimulus  and  strain 
to  the  child's  brain  in  the  home  if  it  is  not  taken  out 
late  and  improperly  managed  ;  of  the  understanding 
and  individual  treatment  that  a  mother  can  give  her 
child,  to  say  nothing  of  the  feeling  of  love  be- 
tween them,  or  of  possible  bad  habits  that  may 
be  taught  by  a  careless  nurse  or  learned  from  another 
child  of  greater  precocity,  that  the  mother  is  the 
proper,  sole   guardian   for   her   child   during   this 
period,  assisted,  of  course,  by  the  father.    But  this 
granted  four  or  five  years  on  to  the  six  years  already 
conceded  takes  the  wife  for  ten  or  eleven  years  away 
from  industry. 

3.  The  majority  of  homes   are  servantless,  the 
majority  of  servants  are  unsuitable  as  nurses,  so  that 


Economics  and  Biology         119 

if  boarding-schools  are  not  to  be  accepted  as  a 
universal  school  custom  and  national  ones  estab- 
lished (and  financial  and  biological1  reasons  could 
both  be  given  against  them),  the  child  must  be  at 
home  for  fifteen  years  of  its  life.  This  makes  twenty 
years'  absence  from  employment  almost  a  certainty. 
4.  Assuming  a  woman  marries  at  twenty-three  to 
twenty-five,  the  twenty  years  thus  take  her  to  forty- 
three  to  forty-five ;  would  she  be  able  to  take  up  at 
this  age  her  old  pre-marital  calling  or  a  new  one  ? 
Obviously  there  is  extremely  little  chance  of  this.  A 
practical  need  at  this  moment  creeps  in  which, 
though  not  of  scientific  insistence,  is  one  that  can 
hardly  be  avoided.  Assuming  that  fifteen  years  of 
age  is  the  time  a  boy  or  a  girl  can  begin  to  learn 
something  of  occupational  life,  an  age  thought  to  be 
two  years  too  early  by  many  authorities,  these 
children  will  not,  as  a  fact,  in  the  majority  of  reasons, 
leave  home  immediately  ;  in  most  instances  they  will 
remain  until  married,  that  is  for  another  eight  to  ten 
years,  and  in  the  mere  daily  home  needs  of  children 
and  husband  the  wife  will  have  her  time  fully  occu- 
pied. By  the  time  the  children  begin  to  leave  home 
a  wife  married  at  the  biological  age  of  twenty-three 
to  twenty-five  would  be  fifty  to  fifty-five  years  before 
her  home  would  be  free  from  children  and  her  life 
less  occupied.  This  is  also  about  the  period  of  the 
change  of  life  in  women,  and  most  mothers  would, 
I  think  rightly,  consider  that  their  active  life  was 
done,  and  that  some  leisure  was  due  to  them,  so  that 
the  post-maternal  part  of  a  woman's  life  is  unlikely 

1  The   mother's  and  the   home   influence   are   probably   most 
needed  psychologically  during  pubescence  and  adolescence. 


1 20         The  Nature  of  Woman 

to  see  her  leaving  home  to  take  up  either  her  old 
occupation  she  had  practised  thirty  to  thirty-five 
years  earlier  or  a  new  one. 

5.  There  remains  the  pre-marital  stage  of  life. 
What  is  the  young,  unmarried  girl  to  do  before 
marriage  ?  I  may  remark  in  passing  that  if  marriage 
were  possible  to  men  at  twenty-three  to  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  it  would  be  fairly  certain  that  the  be- 
trothal period  would  begin  about  eighteen  months  to 
three  years  earlier,  so  that  for  the  majority  of  women 
the  question  would  be  what  to  occupy  themselves  with 
from  the  seventeenth  to  the  twenty-third  year.  For 
those  not  marrying  some  other  occupational  solution 
different  from  the  marriage  one  ought  to  be  found. 
These  questions  come  naturally  into  the  subject 
matter  of  the  next  chapter  but  one.  Thus  on 
making  two  perfectly  simple  and  scientific  assump- 
tions, one,  that  for  the  majority  of  women  marriage 
and  parentage  are  the  normal,  healthy  destinies  (and 
no  sane,  competent  authority  could  question  this), 
two,  that  the  home  must  persist  for  the  needs  of  the 
child,  we  see  what  common  sense  suggests  as  well, 
that  marriage  is  an  occupation  in  itself,  and  there- 
fore excludes  other  occupations,  and  therefore  for 
the  married  woman  the  wage-earning  market  must 
be  closed. 

I  shall,  of  course,  be  told  that  this  will  bring  into 
still  more  striking  prominence  the  endowment  of 
motherhood,  but  there  are  powerful  objections  to 
any  proposition  made  on  such  a  basis,  if  the  endow- 
ment is  a  real  endowment  equivalent  in  kind  and  value 
to  what  a  man  earns  by  his  occupation.  If  it  were 
general,  given  to  every  mother  in  proportion  to  the 


Economics  and  Biology         121 

number  of  her  children,  it  would  favour  early 
marriages,  which,  however,  the  law  might  forbid,  and 
it  would  certainly  tend  to  make  the  inefficient  type 
of  husband  rely  upon  his  wife  for  financial  support, 
thus  defeating  the  very  object  of  the  endowment. 
If  the  endowment  was  given  on  the  basis  of  Sir 
Francis  Galton's  scheme,  as  a  contribution  propor- 
tional to  the  worth  of  any  given  family,  then,  quite 
apart  from  the  practical  scientific  difficulty  of  tell- 
ing which  are  the  worthy  families,  and  the  moral 
difficulty,  scarcely  less  formidable,  that  the  labelling 
of  worth  under  these  circumstances  would  foster  a 
very  dangerous  priggish  element  in  the  nation,  and 
at  the  same  time  by  making  worthiness  a  financial  aim 
of  the  unworthy,  defeat  again  its  own  object,  quite 
apart  from  these  difficulties,  it  would  almost  equally 
certainly  take  away  from  the  worthy  husband  the 
incentive  of  labour.  All  such  schemes  would,  more- 
over, brutalise  woman  by  favouring,  not  incidentally 
but  deliberately,  the  large  family,  and  accentuating 
this  aspect  of  marriage. 

We  seem,  therefore,  driven  back  to  the  only 
possible  way  left  to  us,  that  of  recognising  the 
economic  dependence  of  the  married  woman  on  her 
husband  and  of  giving  her  full  practical  rights,  even 
to  the  extent  of  shutting  an  idle  husband  up  in  a 
labour  colony  and  obtaining  work  from  him  under 
compulsion  for  her  support,  and  of  discountenancing, 
though,  of  course,  not  forbidding,  the  continental 
system  of  the  parental  endowment  of  daughters,  as 
this  favours  a  money  basis  for  marriage  rather  than 
a  healthy  love  affinity — and  this  is,  after  all,  only  a 
development  of  the  English  tradition. 


122          The  Nature  of  Woman 

It  might  be  argued  with  much  reason  that  the 
lazy  wife's  position  ought  to  be  legally  punishable  as 
well  as  the  husband's,  and  it  is,  of  course,  needless  to 
say  that  all  celibate  occupational  positions  should  be 
gradually  eliminated  from  social  life. 

Shortly,  then,  what  the  biologist  demands  is  this  : 
the  abolition  of  all  forms  of  child  labour  except 
those  legitimately  connected  with  the  teaching  of 
trades  and  professions  to  youth  ;  the  economic  de- 
pendence of  the  married  woman  on  the  man — and 
women  should  remember  that  this  only  means  the 
domestic  dependence  of  the  man  on  the  woman — and 
the  establishment  of  a  man's  mature  marriageable 
living  wage  as  the  wage  standard  of  the  nation,  the 
single  woman  and  the  single  man  being  paid  at  the 
same  hourly  payment.  It  probably  would  be 
necessary  to  tax  the  single  woman  and  man  more 
heavily  than  the  married  man  under  these  con- 
ditions, but  as  the  single  woman,  better  paid,  ought 
not  to  work  for  such  long  hours  (a  great  ad- 
vantage to  her  health),  and  the  single  man  would 
be  mostly  making  preparations  for  marriage,  the 
tax  should  not,  in  justice,  greatly  exceed  the 
married  man's. 

This,  then,  is  the  biological  demand,  for  a  man's 
mature  marriageable  living  family  wage,  varying,  of 
course,  for  different  occupations,  as  the  standard 
payment  for  all  in  each  respective  employment,  thus 
making  juvenile  labour  impossible,  and  fixing  all 
employment  at  the  married  man's  standard. 

How  this  is  to  be  done,  whether  by  law  or  trade- 
union  pressure,  how  expeditiously  it  can  be  achieved, 
these  and  other  questions  must  be  left  to  the 


Economics  and  Biology         123 

economist,  but  of  the  biological  necessity  of  this 
standard  for  healthy  national  and  individual  life 
liiere  can  be  little  doubt ;  on  this  point  biologists 
of  the  future  will  probably  allow  nothing  in  the 
nature  of  a  compromise. 

Yet  I  do  not  desire  the  reader  to  think  that  I  am 
wishful  to  establish  binding  laws  to  which  no  in- 
dividual exceptions  are  to  be  made.  I  repeat,  I  ask 
for  nothing  else  than  this — that  woman  should  re- 
cognise her  own  individuality  and  that  man  should 
recognise  it  also,  in  education,  vocation,  domestic 
life  and  national  representation. 


Chapter  VIII 

The  Home  and  Motherhood  as  Mental,  not 
Material,  Ideals 

J  HAVE  said  nothing  so  far  about  certain  argu- 
ments that  might  be  thought  worthy  of  rather 
serious  criticism.  The  fact,  for  instance,  that  in 
Lancashire,  especially  in  many  of  the  large  towns, 
women  have  almost  abandoned  the  home  and  work 
side  by  side  with  the  men.  Thus  woman's  economic 
independence  may  be  said  to  be  a  fact  accomplished, 
and  that  while  this  independence  works  badly  in 
Dundee,  it  is  fairly  satisfactory  in  the  cotton  in- 
dustry. The  answer  is  simple  ;  for  the  home  not  to 
be  neglected  some  other  woman  than  the  mother 
has  to  keep  it  in  order — why  not  the  mother  ? — and 
for  expectant  motherhood  and  for  the  child  during 
infancy  factory  life  is  unphysiological.  No  one  will 
seriously  contend  that  the  home  under  such  con- 
ditions equals  that  of  the  better  type  of  home- 
employed  mother ;  and  if  such  a  contention  were 
made,  it  could  easily  be  confuted,  for  it  is  not  the  fact. 
The  argument  then  appears  to  be  this  :  because  the 
best  type  of  factory  or  professionally  employed 
mother  can  manage  to  so  control  unphysiological 
methods  of  life,  and  by  payment  of  others  to  work 
for  her  can  keep  a  house  in  order,  provided  her  chil- 

124 


The  Home  and  Motherhood     125 

dren,  who  ought  to  be  at  home,  are  taken  care  of 
elsewhere,  supposing  this  type  of  woman  keeps  up  a 
condition  of  domestic  life  that,  though  defective,  is 
yet  better  than  the  worst  examples  of  home-em- 
ployed motherhood,  that  therefore  all  examples  of 
home-employed  motherhood  shall  be  swept  away 
and  the  employment  of  married  women  can  go  on 
moderately  unsatisfactorily  and  extremely  unsatis- 
factorily as  before.  It  is  an  argument  worthy  of  a 
logician's  analysis  for  exposition  to  his  students,  of 
faulty  reasoning,  but  it  is  not  worth  the  scientist's 
attention. 

In  all  seriousness,  what  do  such  arguments  amount 
to  ?  Nothing.  Supposing  it  could  be  granted  that 
an  expectant  mother  can  do  the  same  kind  and 
amount  of  work  as  the  non-expectant  or  the  single 
woman  without  injury  to  herself  or  child,  which 
it  cannot ;  supposing  it  could  be  admitted  that  a 
modified  cow's  or  so-called  humanised  milk  could  be 
prepared  so  as  to  suit  the  individual  infant,  and 
have  the  amount  and  quality  changed  with  the 
infant's  changing  needs  ;  and  supposing  a  feeding- 
bottle  could  be  made  which  automatically  heated 
the  milk  up  to  body  temperature,  and  kept  it  at 
that  temperature,  and  never  lower  or  higher,  and, 
without  destroying  the  living  food  substances  in  the 
milk  good  and  necessary  for  the  baby,  could  at  the 
same  time  be  kept  perfectly  sterilised ;  supposing  this 
same  feeding-bottle  could  be  made  so  that  the  flow 
of  milk  could  be  properly  regulated,  and  supposing 
you  could  guarantee  that  nurses  who  feed  this  little 
life  shall  not  allow  this  very  complex  feeding-bottle 
to  become  dirty,  as  it  easily  might,  and  always  obey 


i26         The  Nature  of  Woman 

exactly  the  regulations  which  would  have  to  be  sent 
out  with  it  to  keep  it  in  order ;  supposing  all  this 
could  be  granted,  would  that  justify  an  expectant 
mother  living  a  factory  life,  or  the  nursing  mother 
for  her  absence  from  her  child  ?  Is  there  nothing  in  a 
mother  thinking  about  the  little  life  within  her  body 
and  meditating  upon  it  ?  And  what  chance  of  medi- 
tation is  there  in  the  ordinary  factory,  or  when  the 
mother  comes  to  her  home  tired  (less  her  home,  for 
it  is  managed  by  another  woman),  what  chance  is 
there  for  meditation  there  either  ?  A  woman  who 
would  thus  defend  an  industrial  life  after  marriage 
is  unworthy  of  marriage  and  of  parentage. 

Is  the  book  that  has  been  tossed  off  carelessly, 
typed  by  one  hand,  indexed  by  another,  refer- 
ences made  by  another,  and  corrections  by 
yet  another,  worth  the  same  in  value  as  the 
one  that  is  author -corrected,  author -indexed, 
author-compiled  ?  No  one  in  his  senses  would 
claim  this.  It  would  be  pointed  out  that  the  care 
of  the  writer  in  his  work  would  react  on  his  mind, 
give  him  fresh  ideas,  enable  him  to  link  his  chapters 
together  and  relate  his  thought,  and  make  his  book 
a  whole.  And  the  old-fashioned  mother  at  her  best, 
who  felt  the  presence  of  her  child,  who  made  its 
garments  with  her  own  hands,  giving  the  little 
finishes  that  as  a  mother  pleased  her,  who  prepared 
for  its  birth,  who  felt  its  little  fingers  at  her  breast 
after  it  was  born,  and  looked  down  with  posse^ion 
and  protection  on  its  little  face,  and  cared  for  it  her- 
self until  it  had  made  a  place  in  her  heart  unshakable 
by  time  or  difficulty,  does  not  such  a  mother  repre- 
sent the  ideal  of  motherhood  ?  Is  any  sensible  man 


The  Home  and  Motherhood     127 

or  woman  going  to  compare  this  woman,  a  mother, 
with  that  other  woman  who  does  none  of  these 
things,  who  simply  bears  the  child  grudgingly,  and 
lets  other  hands  minister  to  its  wants  and  needs, 
when  and  wherever  it  is  possible  for  them  to  do 
so  ?  That  one  who  does,  either  has  had  no  child 
or  deserves  none. 

Is  it  necessary  to  carry  the  argument  further,  to 
suggest  that  bricks  and  mortar  and  pictures  and 
furniture  and  food  and  knives  and  forks  and  a  bed 
to  lie  on  do  not  make  a  home  ?  That  what  is  meant 
by  home  is  as  real  and  as  spiritual  as  what  is  meant 
by  beauty  or  truth  and  as  difficult  to  define  ? 

The  man  or  woman  who  has  felt  what  the  home 
means,  is  such  a  one  going  to  be  convinced  by  peti- 
tions or  simple  health  arguments  to  abandon  it  for 
a  life  where  meals  are  eaten  at  public  places,  where 
beds  are  hired  and  rooms  purchased,  when  he  or  she 
has  the  chance  of  another  mode  of  life,  where  the 
rule  is  affection,  not  finance,  and  privacy  and  indi- 
viduality, not  publicity  and  nonentity?  To  have 
your  own  pictures  on  the  wall,  your  own  books  on 
their  shelves,  your  own  furniture,  your  own  friends, 
your  own  fireside,  and  to  weigh  against  these  pub- 
licity and  finance — as  well  tell  an  artist  that  photo- 
graphs are  cheaper,  or  a  scientist  that  truth  is  only 
veracity  and  not  worthy  of  the  trouble  spent  upon 
it.  Home  as  a  positive,  mental  reality,  motherhood 
and  wifehood  as  fatherhood  and  husbandhood,  are 
things  mental,  spiritual,  not  material,  as  every  one 
who  has  seen  or  had  either  knows,  and  to  tell  such  a 
one  that  you  could  make  a  home  by  being  absent 
from  it  and  by  doing  little  for  it,  and  that  it  is  not 


128          The  Nature  of  Woman 

to  be  weighed  by  the  side  of  industrial  life,  would 
leave  such  a  person  unconvinced. 

The  mere  fact  that  such  arguments  are  adduced 
demonstrates  how  far  reason  has  usurped  the  place 
of  feeling,  and  what  an  unworthy  usurper  it  is ;  how 
far  low  thoughts  of  trade  have  degraded  life  ;  how 
far  a  man  or  woman  with  natural  manly  and 
womanly,  fatherly  and  motherly,  feelings  can  lose 
these  and  be  obsessed  by  a  worthless  shadow  that 
has  not  even  the  form  of  the  reality  it  counterfeits. 
I  am  not  blaming  the  woman  who  has  uncon- 
sciously made  mistakes,  for  the  character  of  the 
times  has  dehumanised  our  lives  and  affected 
women  even  more  than  men. 


Chapter  IX 

The  Sphere  of  Woman 

little  book  draws  in  this  and  the  next 
chapter  to  its  close  ;  in  this  the  practical  side, 
in  the  next  what  one  may  say  about  the  ideal. 

Our  question  is  partly  a  more  difficult  one  because 
our  own  follies  have  made  it  difficult.  The  excess 
of  women  results  from  one  of  these.  Boy  babies 
are  born  in  greater  numbers  than  girl  babies,  and 
were  women  better  mothers  and  men  better  fathers, 
the  boy  baby,  more  delicate  than  the  girl  baby, 
would  not  die  to  the  same  extent,  and  the  pro- 
portion of  the  sexes  would  be  equalised  at  maturity. 
Still  even  then  there  would  be  single  women  and 
single  men. 

From  the  beginning  of  this  book  I  have  insisted, 
and  as  a  biologist  I  must  insist,  on  the  recognition  of 
womanliness  as  a  mental  state  as  well  as  a  bodily 
one,  and  have  returned  again  and  again  to  the 
thought  that  no  system  of  education,  of  occupation, 
and  of  representation  can  afford  to  put  this  thought 
on  one  side. 

The  problems  of  sex  begin  at  the  beginning  of  life 

in  the  strange  fact  just  mentioned,  that  the  boy 

baby  is  more  frail,  though  why  he  is  so  we  do  not 

know.    During  childhood,  that  is  for  the  first  eight 

i  129 


130          The  Nature  of  Woman 

or  nine  years,  there  are  few  difficulties  to  face.  The 
boy  is  a  little  rougher,  needs,  perhaps,  just  a  shade 
more  physical  exercise,  but  with  care  boys  and  girls 
can  play  together,  study  together,  in  the  home  and 
the  school,  and  are  benefited  by  so  doing.  This  is 
the  relatively  asexual  period  of  life,  and  the  kinder- 
garten system  of  education,  with  certain  modifica- 
tions, may  be  accepted,  the  mother  to  teach  for 
the  first  five  years  of  life,  and  the  lady  school-teacher 
for  the  four  that  follow  for  both  sexes. 

At  pubescence,  however,  the  fact  of  bodily  change 
into  womanhood  begins  to  appear  and  develop 
rapidly  in  the  girl,  and  commences  slowly  two  years 
later  in  the  boy.  Some  girls  and  boys  are  rapid 
developers,  others  are  ordinary,  others,  again,  are 
slow,  but  it  is  always  true  that  of  the  boy  and  girl  of 
the  same  type  the  girl  is  the  first  by  about  two  years 
to  begin  this  change,  and  it  proceeds  when  begun 
at  a  more  rapid  rate,  so  that  between  eleven  and 
fourteen  years  a  girl  may  be  actually  taller,  and  is 
much  more  mature,  than  the  boy. 

There  is  an  undoubted  natural  tendency  for  the 
sexes  to  separate  at  this  period,  as  anyone  can  verify 
for  himself  or  herself. 

And  the  girl  at  this  period  equally  certainly  is  less 
inclined  for  severe  mental  work,  and  from  this  time 
forward  throughout  her  life  tends  to  wish  to  take, 
unless  encouraged  to  the  contrary,  less  violent 
physical  exercise. 

The  boy  also  is  less  inclined  for  mental  effort,  but 
his  interest  in  physical,  bodily  exercise  becomes  re- 
markably keen  and  intense. 

There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  these  feelings 


The  Sphere  of  Woman  131 

express  a  natural  need  in  the  physical  changes  of  the 
body. 

The  girl's  hips  widen  for  later  maturity,  her  limbs 
become  rounded  and  more  full  of  form,  and  her  feet 
and  hands  do  not  grow  in  the  same  relation,  so  that 
they  now  begin  to  appear  small.  Were  there  no 
other  facts  than  these,  which  are  the  contrary  of  the 
boys,  with  long  limbs  and  often  big  hands  and  feet, 
they  would  be  enough  to  demonstrate  that  muscular 
exercises  of  an  extreme  nature  are  unnatural.  The 
chief  mental  fact  of  this  period  in  girls  is  its  in- 
stability, as  frequent  giggling  proves,  and  of  the  boy 
a  bodily  idealism. 

There  are  no  positive  facts  for  or  against,  but  it  is 
probable  rather  than  improbable  that  much  physical, 
and  perhaps  mental,  exercise  at  this  period  would 
retard  womanly  development,  making  it  less  perfect, 
drawing  off  to  other  quarters  nourishment  which  is 
needed  for  womanly  changes  coming  into  the  young 
girl's  life.  This  much  we  do  know,  that  probably 
at  no  other  time  in  history  has  childbirth  been  so 
difficult,  so  unhealthily  difficult,  as  now,  and  that 
this  has  manifested  itself  chiefly  in  the  last  fifty 
years,  a  period  marked  by  increasing  educational 
strain  for  girls  and  boys,  by  increased  gymnastic  and 
violent  exercises,  such  as  hockey,  for  girls,  and  by 
employment  for  young  women  outside  of  the  home. 
It  is  probable  that  one  or  all  of  these  changes  are 
responsible  for  this  childbirth  difficulty,  and  for  the 
nerviness  in  women.  But,  of  course,  on  this  subject 
we  need  painstaking  research. 

During  adolescence,  the  period  up  to  about 
sixteen  to  eighteen  in  girls,  and  two  years  later  in 


132          The  Nature  of  Woman 

boys,  the  mental  side  of  sex  begins  to  be  manifested, 
and  the  danger  to  both  sexes  alike  is  a  false  senti- 
mentalism,  which  must,  none  the  less,  not  make  us 
blind  to  the  fact  that  this  period  should  be  marked 
by  a  development  of  real  sentiment,  of  genuine 
respect  for  women  and  men,  of  love  of  truth, 
beauty,  and  religion.  If  the  minds  of  the  boy  and 
girl  were  the  same,  it  might  be  conceivable  that 
their  education  should  be  similar,  but  the  girl  is 
unquestionably  more  affectable  than  the  boy,  and 
ought  to  be  so,  is  more  intuitive,  is  less  combative, 
and  her  mind  is  subtler,  more  suggestive,  and  the 
aesthetic  element  plays  a  larger  part  than  in  the 
boy's  mind. 

The  boy  is  more  individual,  more  rational, 
more  combative,  and  the  ideal  of  truth  and 
reality  plays  a  larger  part  with  the  boy  than 
aesthetic  feelings. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  see  how  these  different 
qualities  can  each  be  strengthened  so  as  to  form 
natural  sex  characters  except  by  distinctive,  non- 
co-educational  methods.  Each  should  surely  be 
taught  something  of  the  science  of  life  ;  but  again  I 
doubt  if  this  knowledge  could  be  taught  wisely  to 
both  sexes  at  this  age. 

If  the  education  of  either  ends  at  this  period  there 
is  no  more  to  be  said,  but  if  both  are  to  go  to  college 
there  can  be  no  question  that  their  education  should 
largely  diverge,  the  domestic,  aesthetic,  and  literary 
predominating  in  the  woman's,  and  the  public,  civic, 
scientific,  and  technical  sides  be  more,  I  do  not  say 
solely,  emphasised  in  the  man's. 

The  case  for  co-education,  I  confess,  seems  to  me 


The  Sphere  of  Woman          133 

quite  unbiological,  though  I  am  ready  to  change  this 
opinion  if  the  evidence  is  forthcoming.  It  seems  to 
depend  for  its  influence  on  some  rather  dogmatic 
assertions  of  its  value  by  co-educationists,  which  are 
not  submitted  to  examination,  and  to  the  fact  that 
it  is  cheap — a  bad  argument ;  and  that  classes  are 
easier  to  manage — which  is,  if  possible,  a  worse.  The 
easy  way  in  almost  all  pursuits  is  easy  by  avoiding, 
not  overcoming,  difficulties. 

The  mere  facts  that  in  America,  even  more  than 
here  in  England,  women  are  so  often  anxious  to  be 
like  men,  and  so  little  desirous  of  disclosing  the 
true  glories  of  womanhood ;  that  the  great  colleges 
like  Newnham  and  Girton  in  England  have  teachers 
and  principals  who  take  little  pains  with  the  woman's 
home  and  domestic  points  of  view,  are  almost  proof 
to  the  scientifically  trained  biologist  that  something 
is  wrong,  as  structure  and  function  should  go  to- 
gether ;  a  woman's  body  with  womanliness  and  a 
man's  with  manliness.  And  as  lecturer  I  know,  what 
as  biologist  I  look  upon  with  great  uneasiness,  this 
fact,  that  there  are  extremely  few  women  who  glory 
in  womanhood  or  even  take  a  pride  in  such  an  ideal. 
There  are,  it  is  true,  few  men  who  have  really  high 
manly  ideals,  but  the  majority  really  wish  to  be 
manly,  even  the  feminine  type  of  man.  It  is  not  so 
with  women,  and  it  is  a  pity  and  an  error  for  our 
nation  and  civilisation. 

Something  such  as  the  following  is  what  is 
desirable  biologically  for  healthy  womanly  and 
manly  life  : 

The  kindergarten  system.  Mother-trained  and 
home-influenced  for  first  five  to  six  years.  For 


134          The  Nature  of  Woman 

boys  and  girls  from  about  six  to  nine,  under 
the  guidance  of  women  teachers. 
Girls'  schools.  Nine  to  seventeen.  Under  the 
control  of  women  teachers  specially  trained  to 
sympathise  with  and  draw  out  in  healthy 
directions  womanly  ideals,  and  themselves  of 
some  feminine  charm  and  insight. 
College.  Seventeen  to  twenty-two.  Specialised 
studies,  but  domestic  science  taught  to  all.  For 
the  practical  domestic  teaching  a  woman 
lecturer,  but  for  the  theoretical  a  man.  I  am 
fairly  convinced,  just  as  women  are  adepts  with 
children,  and  men  in  the  early  years  of  child  life 
are  very  poor  teachers,  so  for  the  final  stages  of 
teaching  a  man  is  a  better  and  a  more  thorough 
guide  than  a  woman. 

This  later  college  work  might  be  combined  with 
some  practical  occupation  at  a  post  in  which  hours 
were  light  and  work  not  heavy,  and  for  those  classes 
unable  to  afford  full  college  work  our  national 
schools  could  be  made  use  of.  Examinations,  except 
in  the  broadest  spirit,  I  cannot  myself  accept  for 
either  sex,  and  while  they  seem  unavoidable  for  men, 
but  are  none  the  less  an  evil,  they  could  and  ought  to 
be  dispensed  with  for  women. 

All  girls  could  go  through  this  training  with  ad- 
vantage, and  it  would  have  this  practical  value,  that 
no  woman  would  be,  as  now  almost  all  women  are, 
unacquainted  with  all  the  many-sided  demands  and 
wonders  of  home  life  :  child  psychology  ;  human 
physiology ;  dietetics  and  cooking ;  hygiene  and 
house-cleaning  ;  choosing  a  house  ;  the  ordering  of 
a  home  ;  how  a  library  may  be  acquired  ;  pictures 


The  Sphere  of  Woman          135 

and  their  value  ;  wall  papers,  furniture,  windows, 
and  how  these  can  be  hygienically  and  aesthetic- 
ally treated  ;  the  stages  of  life  ;  nursing  and  the 
management  of  disease.  Such  a  course,  rightly 
developed,  would  open  out  to  woman  what  the 
domestic  side  of  life  could  be,  and  it  would  fit  her 
for  what  the  majority  of  women  become,  wives  and 
mothers,  and  what  the  nation  needs  as  its  greatest 
womanly  asset.  And  this  same  course  would  teach 
women  to  understand  the  truth  that,  rightly  ap- 
preciated, there  is  almost  too  much  in  the  home  and 
its  requisites,  and  not  too  little,  and  good  mothers 
and  good  wives  would  be  seen  to  be,  as  they  are,  the 
women  who  realise  their  lives  most  fully  and  com- 
pletely. 

This  college  period  of  seventeen  to  twenty-two  is 
the  period  when  the  majority  of  women  become  be- 
trothed, and  if  a  woman  reaches  twenty-two  years 
without  having  met  the  man  she  is  likely  to  care  for 
as  her  future  husband,  it  would  be  then  quite 
time  enough  to  open  up  the  thought  of  the 
prospect  of  another  kind  of  career.  It  is  generally 
admitted  in  the  practice  of  hospitals  for  nurses,  and 
other  similar  institutions,  that  about  twenty-three  to 
twenty-five  is  a  suitable  vocational  age  for  women  ; 
and  some  spheres  of  life,  such  as  music  or  art,  which 
demand  early  training,  might  easily  have  been 
partially  prepared  for  in  the  earlier  stages.  It  is 
claimed  that  for  no  appropriate  calling  for  women 
would  this  scheme  of  education  be  other  than 
beneficial. 

One  word  more  ought  to  be  said  for  the  unmarried 
woman.  She  is  sometimes  the  unchosen  of  her  type 


136          The  Nature  of  Woman 

and  kind,  and  even  as  such  may  have  a  very  useful 
and  happy  future  ahead  of  her  in  literature,  in 
music,  or  art,  or  in  domestic  pursuits,  or  in  health 
visiting  or  similar  occupations ;  but,  as  often,  she  is 
one  who  for  the  sake  of  a  high  ideal  chooses  celibacy 
rather  than  degrade  it.  Such  women  are  apt  to  look 
on  their  lives  as  partial  failures.  It  is  not  so.  These 
are  the  women  who  elevate  their  own  sex,  teach  the 
grandeur  of  womanly  individuality,  and  lead  men  as 
well  as  women  to  a  higher  appreciation  of  womanly 
life  and  powers.  The  teaching  to-day  that  action  is 
for  woman  as  for  man  the  ideal,  is  a  cruel  and  false 
doctrine,  false  by  the  record  of  all  history  as  well  as 
of  biological  thought.  A  woman  may  attain  to  great- 
ness in  literature  or  on  the  stage,  the  latter  some- 
times at  the  cost  of  her  character ;  she  may  become 
a  good  musician  or  a  good  artist,  a  good  nurse  or  a 
medical  woman,  but  she  is  not  primarily  any  one  of 
these.  A  man's  influence  is  small  by  the  side  of  a 
womanly  woman's,  though  his  actions  may  be  large, 
and  it  is  the  woman  as  she  is  that  counts,  not 
primarily  what  she  does.  But  none  the  less  I  believe 
the  day  will  come  when  by  good  motherhood  the 
sexes  will  be  equalised,  or  the  excess  even  be  on  the 
man's  side,  and  with  a  juster  order  of  social  life  there 
will  be  few  women  who  will  not  meet  the  men  Nature 
has  fitted  them  for.  The  call  of  sacrifice,  however, 
may  come  to  all,  and  perhaps  in  the  final  weighing  up 
of  things  that  man  or  woman,  whether  from  the  call 
of  human  love  or  for  beauty  or  for  truth,  who  holds 
up  in  his  or  her  life  the  solitary  ideal,  may  be  the  one 
who  has  really  counted  most  in  raising  the  standard 
of  life.  However  this  be,  the  teaching  of  biology, 


The  Sphere  of  Woman          137 

first  and  last,  for  woman  and  for  man  is  to  accept  our 
natures,  glory  in  them,  and  keep  healthy  what 
Nature  has  given  us,  making  her  vast  possibilities 
real  actualities  by  our  lives.  This  can  only  be  done 
for  woman  by  being  womanly,  and  for  man  by 
acting  as  becomes  a  man. 

s 


Chapter  X 

The  Nature  of  Man  and  Woman 

PHREE  conclusions  are  very  clearly  present  to 
the  student  of  life  confronted  with  the  con- 
ditions of  to-day,  and  studied  in  the  light  of 
modern  knowledge.  First,  that  it  is  no  exaggeration 
but  the  simple  truth  to  assert  that  human  life  is 
capable  of  wonderful  possibilities ;  it  has  its  limita- 
tions, limitations  which  must  be  clearly  realised 
before  the  possibilities  can  be  in  any  large  measure 
attained,  but  none  the  less  the  possibilities  are  there. 
Second,  that  in  our  treatment  of  a  life  occupation, 
in  our  marriages,  and  in  our  conduct  after  marriages ; 
in  the  thought  about  and  in  our  realisation  of 
parentage,  as  well  as  in  our  treatment  of  children 
afterwards  in  the  home,  at  school,  at  college,  for 
those  able  to  carry  the  child  to  this  period, 
we  are  at  best  very  poor  muddlers,  throwing  away 
generation  by  generation  a  patrimony  from  Nature 
worth  far  more  than  all  the  kings'  ransoms  in  the 
world.  Third,  the  fact  noticed  by  Roscoe,  Hansson, 
and  others,  and  already  commented  upon  in  my  first 
chapter,  that  men  and  women  stand  apart  to-day, 
or,  as  Roscoe  finely  says,  approach  each  other  by 
negation  rather  than  fulfilment ;  that  out  of  this 
negative  spirit  has  grown  a  dangerous,  ignorant,  and 

138 


The  Nature  of  Man  and  Woman    139 

suicidal  denial  of  sex,  and  with  it,  however  incon- 
sistent this  may  seem,  a  still  more  dangerous  ex- 
aggeration of  the  physical  side  of  the  relations  of 
men  and  women,  which  has  caused  even  genuine 
scientific  writers,  usually  a  balanced,  healthy  body 
of  men,  to  write  at  quite  unnecessary  length,  un- 
necessary even  for  scientific  purposes,  upon  what 
our  ancestors  would  have  rightly  called  unhealthy — 
and  in  the  fact  that  certain  practices  are  not  normal, 
what  they  would  have  called  unnatural — subjects. 
Every  man  of  experience  knows  that  such  sex  failures 
exist,  every  medical  man  of  experience  knows 
broadly  to  what  extent  they  exist,  but  to  make 
public  such  unhealthiness,  to  encourage  prurient 
thought  on  this  depravity  of  human  nature  by 
publishing  unpleasant  details,  is  not  good  for  the 
public  mind,  and  I  will  go  further  and  say  that  as 
it  is  a  scientist's  science  to  present  all  subjects  im- 
personally and  under  general  laws,  these  personal, 
domestic  details  of  unhealthy  minds  that  occupy 
volumes  of  some  writers  are  only  the  crude,  raw 
material  out  of  which  a  scientific  treatise  might  be 
written,  but  have  no  claims  to  be  published  as  the 
treatise  itself  or  published  at  all.  One  inevitable 
result  of  this  modern  treatment  of  the  subject  has 
been  to  take  out  the  human  from  sex  and  to  exalt 
the  animal  side  and  to  vulgarise  human  love  and 
human  parentage  so  that  commerce  and  the  public 
Press  can  make  traffic  of  what  is  by  nature  private 
and  sacred.  I  know  perfectly  well  that  there  were 
vulgar  plays  a  hundred  years  ago,  more  openly  vulgar 
than,  perhaps,  any  to-day,  but  certainly  far  less 
suggestively  so  ;  I  know  that  through  gossip,  for  the 


140          The  Nature  of  Woman 

Press  had  no  existence  then  as  a  popular  force,  all 
sorts  of  unpleasant  tales  were  disseminated ;  but  a 
hundred  years  ago  there  was  a  strong,  refined  body 
of  men  and  women  who  opposed  these  tendencies, 
who  rejected  them,  who  in  a  real  sense  led  the  nation. 
There  is  no  such  body  to-day. 

My  life  has  been  spent  in  science,  and  I  believe  in 
science  because  I  know,  however  imperfectly,  some- 
thing of  what  the  search  for  truth  and  reality  is 
capable  of,  but  if  I  thought  that  the  study  of 
eugenics,  of  parental  hygiene,  of  heredity  were  only 
tending  to  focus  human  minds  on  the  morbid,  un- 
healthy side  of  life,  I  would  devote  the  rest  of  my 
life,  such  as  it  is,  to  discouraging  these  studies.  Men 
and  women  must  be  taught  to  see  that  the  lower  side 
of  sex  is  a  relatively  simple  matter,  and  that  its 
hygiene  can  be  expressed  in  few  words,  but  that 
what  is  wonderful,  strange,  and  complex  is  woman- 
liness of  the  mind  and  manliness  of  the  mind  and  the 
reactions  that  grow  out  of  these  in  human  marriage 
and  parentage.  That  it  is  this  higher  appeal  that 
justifies  womanly  and  manly  purity  of  life  and 
monogamic  love,  of  which  the  Western  mind  de- 
servedly may  be  proud,  and  which  Dante  idealised 
with  his  verse. 

When  I  think  over  these  three  points  of  view  I  find 
myself  in  this  difficulty  :  If  I  assert,  what  is  true,  that 
the  potentiality  of  life  for  man  and  woman  is 
wonderful,  did  they  but  know  it,  and  I  try  to  appeal 
to  real  sentiment,  and  show  its  relationship  to  science, 
I  may  be  honestly  told  by  those  whose  knowledge  has 
been,  like  Mill's,  only  a  rationalistic  knowledge,  that 
I  am  sentimentalising,  and  that  real  sentiment  does 


The  Nature  of  Man  and  Woman    141 

not  exist.  I  may  point  to  adolescence,  and  to  the 
practical  mind  of  Maudsley,  the  pioneer  of  adoles- 
cent teaching,  who  first  recognised  this  truth,  and 
suggest  that  this  emotional  enlargement  of  mind  by 
sex  is  a  reality,  yet  I  may  still  leave  such  critics  un- 
convinced. If  I  try  to  satisfy  them  I  shall  have  to 
write  a  treatise,  as  I  hope  to  do  some  day,  but  it  will 
not  have  the  object  of  this  little  book,  which  is  to 
make  the  worker  in  non-scientific  fields,  the  home- 
maker,  feel  that  manhood  and  womanhood  are  noble 
realities.  Yet  this  very  man,  and  still  more  woman, 
that  I  am  trying  to  reach  may  criticise  me  because  I 
have  set  too  high  an  ideal,  which  cannot  be  followed 
in  life,  and  say  I  am  a  mere  dreamer  ;  yet  I  know 
that  some  married  women  have  been  driven  by 
circumstances  into  the  labour  market,  and  that  some 
of  these  have  done  much  to  keep  the  home  spirit,  in 
spite  of  it.  I  know  that  some  have  married  for 
financial  reasons,  and  yet  with  a  wise  sense  of  duty 
have  come  to  realise  much  happiness.  I  know  that 
many  have  wrecked  their  lives,  and  I  ought  to  have 
said  a  great  deal  for  these,  but  had  I  done  so  it 
would  not  have  been  this  book  that  I  should  have 
written,  but  another.  To  these  people  who  are 
working  through  mistakes  to  a  better  realisation  of 
life  I  would  say,  the  mistake  is  made,  and  in  spite  of 
the  natural  but  unscientific  claim  for  divorce  laws,  it 
cannot  and  ought  not  to  be  capable  of  being  remade. 
As  a  fact,  no  law  can  reshape  these  old  errors  and 
give  us  the  opportunity  of  beginning  life  over  again. 
We  have  not  the  secret  of  Faust ;  and  Goethe,  no 
dreamer,  did  not  hesitate  to  describe  the  nature  of 
the  source  one  would  have  to  draw  upon  had  we  the 


142          The  Nature  of  Woman 

secret.  No  divorce  laws  can  make  blank  our  memories, 
none  can  make  us  cease  to  be  parents  with  parents' 
responsibilities,  if  we  have  once  become  parents. 
There  is  only  one  way,  the  old-fashioned  way,  to 
meet  these  mistakes,  to  live  them  out,  as  was  the 
religious,  and  is  to-day  the  scientific,  practice.  To 
try  to  begin  to  live,  in  spite  of  the  error,  the 
blunder,  as  if  no  error  or  blunder  had  been  made, 
and  slowly,  something,  not  the  ideal  it  is  true,  but 
none  the  less  approaching  it,  will  be  reached,  and 
parents  who  have  made  this  error  can  help  their 
children  not  to  repeat  it  in  their  lives. 

I  want  to  say  a  final  word,  as  far  as  this  book  is 
concerned,  on  the  nature  of  man  and  the  nature  of 
woman,  and  I  do  not  claim  for  this  part  of  my  book 
any  scientific  value  whatever  ;  it  is  simply  that  I  shall 
try  and  give  two  symbols  of  sex  which  in  a  fairly 
busy  life  have  been  of  real  help  to  me  in  understand- 
ing my  fellows,  men  and  women  alike.  I  do  not 
claim  for  it  even  originality,  for  it  is  possible  that 
some  writer  that  I  read,  perhaps,  twenty  years  ago, 
when  my  own  mind  was  opening,  used  these  similes, 
and  I  have  forgotten  the  author  but  remembered 
the  illustration. 

I  have,  however,  come  to  think  of  the  mind  of  a 
boy  or  a  man  as  one  might  think  of  a  rope  made  up  of 
many  twisted  strands,  each  strand  a  different  and  in 
the  main  an  obvious  colour.  These  strands  can  be 
plainly  seen  exactly  as  they  twist  and  intertwine  in 
the  whole  rope.  One  can  see  that  some  are  thicker 
than  others,  some  are  more  beautiful  colours,  some 
are  stronger,  it  might  conceivably  be  even  necessary 
sometimes  to  untwist  a  part  of  the  rope,  dangerous 


The  Nature  of  Man  and  Woman    143 

as  such  a  practice  is,  take  out  a  bad  portion  and  re- 
twist  it  again,  so  that  only  sound  material  remains. 
A  masculine  type  of  mind,  and  the  more  masculine 
he  is  the  more  clearly  he  sees  it,  sees  his  mind  thus. 
He  seems  to  stand  apart,  looking  down  upon  his 
mental  attitudes,  desires,  and  feelings,  appetites  and 
emotions,  examining  them,  testing  them.  He  knows 
that  some  strands  of  his  nature  are  lower  than 
others,  that  some  are  stronger  ;  he  knows  that  at 
times,  if  he  has  allowed  his  mind  to  be  poisoned, 
there  is  nothing  to  save  himself  but  the  ex- 
tremely dangerous  method  of  cutting  a  portion  or 
the  whole  of  one  strand  out  of  his  being,  but  all  the 
while  he  sees  his  nature  in  this  form,  directs  it  and 
controls  it  or,  if  he  be  weak,  allows  his  nature  to  con- 
trol him,  knowing  all  the  time  that  he  should  himself 
rule,  but  knowing,  of  course,  also  that  these  strands 
of  his  being  are  all  he  has,  and  that  he  cannot  acquire 
others,  and  must  work  with  these  alone.  Man's 
nature  is  thus  visible,  as  it  were,  to  himself  and  to 
others  who  observe,  and,  as  I  have  said,  to  his  wife 
most  of  all,  if  she  be  his  real  wife.  It  is  quite  useless 
to  try  to  disguise  this,  even  if  he  desire.  But  within 
the  limits  of  his  powers  he  can,  none  the  less,  shape 
his  life.  To  extend  the  simile  to  fit  the  needs,  if  each 
of  these  strands  is  capable  of  growth,  man  can  be  a 
gardener  to  them,  checking  some,  stimulating  others. 
He  can  make  his  life  what  he  will  within  the  limits 
of  what  is  given  him,  and  I  think  every  strong  man, 
even  boy,  knows  this  and  realises  it,  especially  if  it  is 
pressed  home  to  him. 

But  it  is  not  so  with  a  woman.     An  unspoiled 
woman  does  not  reason  about  herself,  for  in  that 


144          The  Nature  of  Woman 

direction  lies  morbidity  and  mind  disease,  as,  of 
course,  it  may  do  in  a  man  if  it  is  carried  too  far.  She 
accepts  herself  as  a  whole,  a  whole  which  she  is 
conscious,  none  the  less,  is  divided  in  its  wholeness. 
There  is  an  outer  bloom,  very  frail,  an  inner, 
commonplace,  supporting  texture,  and  an  inmost 
core,  strong,  tenacious,  unconquerable. 

The  bloom  is  so  delicate  that  a  finger-touch  may 
spoil  it ;  the  core  is  so  strong  that  not  even  the 
strongest  manly  mind  can  break  it,  if  the  frail  bloom 
be  intact.  But  bloom  and  core  go  together,  and 
leave,  if  they  go,  only  the  commonplace  supporting 
texture  and  little  else. 

The  man  may  have  five  or  fifty  strands  in  his 
nature  spoiled  and  yet  something  of  beauty  may 
remain,  something  of  real  manhood,  but  the  woman, 
if  the  bloom  really  goes,  has  nothing. 

Teach  a  woman  to  respect  this  bloom,  and  she  will 
live  by  the  secret  strength  of  this  inner  core  in- 
vulnerable, unless  man  can  be  made  blind  so  that  he 
does  not  know  or  feel  that  the  bloom  exists.  Teach 
him  to  know  both  the  beauty  and  the  frailty  of  the 
bloom  and  to  respect  it,  and  with  even  the  roughest 
man  woman  need  have  no  fear. 

There  are  women  who  have  little  of  this  bloom, 
who  yet  use  this  little  to  dominate  the  man  by  his 
respect  for  its  frailty  and  its  beauty.  There  are  men 
who  know  that  this  bloom  is  frail,  and  who  in  their 
brutality  brush  it  on  one  side  and  with  it  womanhood 
and,  perhaps,  manhood  too. 

These  are  clumsy  images,  I  know,  but  yet  I  hope 
that  by  them  I  have  conveyed  something  of  the 
truth,  the  woman's  frailty,  beauty,  and  yet  deeper 


The  Nature  of  Man  and  Woman    145 

strength,  which  place  her  in  these  elements  above 
man,  her  wholeness  and  her  need  to  keep  her  whole- 
ness clean  and  unsullied,  her  fall  almost  irrecoverable 
when  this  bloom  is  gone.  The  bloom  a  mystery  even 
to  herself.  The  man  rougher,  stronger,  much  less 
supple,  but  capable  of  moulding  his  character  to  an 
extent  that  would  be  fatal  to  any  real  woman.  When 
a  man  ceases  to  desire  to  shape  himself  he  is  done, 
a  will-less  wreck  ;  when  a  woman  lets  go  this  ideal  of 
bloom,  core  and  strength  and  tenacity  go  out  from 
her  even  as  the  beauty,  and  what  remains  is  the 
commonplace  supporting  texture,  fouled  and  mired, 
of  what  once  was  a  character. 

These  similes  are  not  good  ones,  I  know,  but  there 
will  be  no  real  understanding  of  the  woman's 
movement  or  the  man's,  nor  of  what  causes  dis- 
content in  each,  until  these  are  understood,  or  if 
not  understood,  are  bettered  by  at  least  an  as  well- 
intentioned  and  a  more  discerning  application  to  life. 

In  marriage,  in  public  life,  in  representation,  it  is 
the  mind  of  the  woman  and  the  man  that  counts  for 
greatness ;  and  the  nature  of  the  woman's  mind,  its 
architecture,  is  fundamentally  of  a  different  order 
from  the  man's,  and  it  is,  partly  at  least,  because  the 
industrial  movement  of  last  century  did  not  recognise 
this  that  the  discontent  of  both  men  and  women 
arose,  and  also  out  of  the  tendency  in  commercial 
development  to  take  from  human  life  its  one  need- 
ful thing,  its  humanity. 


Supplementary  Chapter 

Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject 

AFTER  John  Hunter,  the  surgeon,  made  his 
study  (of  whom,  owing  to  the  dishonesty  of 
a  friend  entrusted  after  his  death  with  his  manu- 
scripts, it  is  not  possible  to  say  how  much  was 
worked  out  in  these  problems  by  him),  no  effective 
work  was  done  until  nearly  the  middle  of  last 
century,  and  the  names  that  specially  deserve  at- 
tention are  Thomas  Laycock,  W.  C.  Roscoe,  Charles 
Darwin,  and  Laura  Hansson ;  in  addition  Auguste 
Comte's  Chapter  V  of  his  Book  VI,  translated  by 
Harriet  Martineau,  should  be  read,  as,  though  it  con- 
tains many  ideas  that  we  should  now  rightly  reject, 
such  as  the  assumption  that  woman  is  inferior,  it 
was  the  first  study  to  scientfically  recognise  that 
woman's  position  in  society  is,  and  must  always  be, 
different  from  the  man's. 

Dr.  Thomas  Laycock  published  his  work,  "  The 
Nervous  Diseases  of  Women,"  in  1840.  It  is  a  work 
that,  while  highly  suggestive  and  containing  much 
evidence  on  the  subject  never  before  collected  to- 
gether, is  yet  a  little  too  speculative  to  rank  as 
a  supreme  scientific  achievement.  He  recognised, 
however,  much  that  Charles  Darwin  established 
later,  and  he  himself  established  certain  truths : 

146 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    147 

"  The  nervous  system  the  seat  of  hysterical 
diseases." 

"  Hysteria  is  peculiar  to  females  "  (Laycock  means 
women). 

"  Hysteria  is  related  to  woman's  maternal  func- 


tions." 


"  Combativeness  a  male  characteristic." 
He  accepted  the  better  informed  thought  of  his 
time  as  to  the  relation  of  sex  glands  to  sex  person- 
ality, and  he  formulated,  taking  his  term  from 
Morelle,  who  preceded  him,  the  celebrated  law  of 
affectability  : 

"  Without  preface  it  may  be  stated  that  by 
universal  consent  the  nervous  system  of  the  human 
female  is  allowed  to  be  sooner  affected  by  all  stimuli, 
whether  corporeal  or  mental,  than  that  of  the  male  " 

(P.  76). 

This  and  his  recognition  of  combativeness  were 
the  first  detailed  statements  which  recognised  and 
proved  that  woman's  mind  was  different  from  man's, 
and  even  female  animals  from  male. 

W.  C.  Roscoe's  article,  published  in  October,  1858, 
the  first  real  attempt  to  analyse  the  woman's  mind 
and  man's  as  woman's  and  man's  (Schopenhauer's 
being  only  a  vague  study  of  bodily  passion  wrongly 
called  love),  is  given  almost  in  full  in  the  text  that 
follows. 

Charles  Darwin,  "  The  Descent  of  Man,  and 
Selection  in  Relation  to  Sex,"  1871,  established  the 
passivity  of  the  female  in  animals  and  the  combative- 
ness  of  the  male  as  a  mental  and  bodily  feature  : 

"  The  males  are  almost  always  the  wooers ;  and 
they  alone  are  armed  with  special  weapons  for  fight- 


148         The  Nature  of  Woman 

ing  with  their  rivals.  They  are  generally  stronger 
and  larger  than  the  females,  and  are  endowed  with 
the  requisite  qualities  of  courage  and  pugnacity  " 
(Chapter  XXI,  second  revised  and  augmented 
edition). 

Laura  Marholm,  afterward  Hansson,  wrote  from 
1880  to  the  present  time.  A  list  of  her  works  is 
given,  with  some  other  writers,  in  the  fuller 
reference  list.  Her  view  is  analysed  and  compared 
with  Roscoe's  in  my  first  chapter. 

These  are  the  really  important  writers  in  the 
understanding  of  woman's  and  man's  life  relation- 
ships ;  other  writers  are  subordinate  to  this  central 
thought  of  mental  differences  in  the  minds  of  men 
and  women  as  well  as  of  physical  differences  in  their 
bodies. 

Article  "  Woman"  by  W .  C.  Roscoe,  'published  in 
"The  National  Review"  for  October,  1858,  re- 
fublished  a  year  later  after  his  death.  The  sub- 
stance of  this  article  here  follows  : 

"  The  influence  of  women  on  modern  European 
society,  Mr.  Buckle  tells  us,  has,  on  the  whole,  been 
extremely  beneficial.  We  presume  the  influence  of 
men  has  also,  on  the  whole,  been  extremely  bene- 
ficial. Yet  it  would  seem  odd  to  urge  this.  What  is 
the  origin  of  this  curious  habit,  by  which  we  so  often 
speak  and  think  of  women  as  something  outside  of 
general  humanity,  or  at  least  a  lesser  distinguishable 
part,  whose  relation  to  the  whole  may  be  made  the 
subject  of  estimate  ?  Are  they  not  in  reality  human 
society  as  much  as  men  are  ?  If  one  looks  at  the 
subject  with  a  fresh  sudden  glance,  it  seems  as 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    149 

strange  to  speak  of  women  exercising  a  beneficial 
influence  on  society  as  of  the  branches  and  leaves 
exercising  a  beneficial  influence  on  the  tree.  Yet  a 
mode  of  speech  so  universal,  and  of  antiquity  so  un- 
dated, must  have  some  true  basis.  '  Man  '  cannot 
mean  both  men  and  women  for  nothing  ;  and  mean 
it  in  all  times  and  all  languages.  Does  this  expression 
imply  that  the  nature  of  the  man  comprehends,  in- 
cludes within  it,  that  of  the  woman  ?  Not  this 
probably  ;  but  it  does  imply  that  society  ever  since 
the  world  began  has  received  its  characteristic  nature 
and  distinctive  impress,  not  from  the  women,  but 
from  the  men  who  helped  to  compose  it.  It  does 
imply,  and  the  world's  history  confirms  it,  that  the 
collective  body  of  men  are  in  their  nature  more 
strong,  more  vigorous,  more  comprehensive,  more 
complete  in  themselves,  than  the  collective  body  of 
women.  It  is  of  no  use  screaming  about  it ;  the  irre- 
fragable fact  remains.  It  is  idle  to  say  it  is  all  owing 
to  the  defective  education  you  give  us.  Why  not 
have  secured  a  higher  education  ?  It  is  no  answer  to 
cry,  it  all  depends  on  your  advantage  in  mere 
physical  strength  ;  for  to  say  so  admits  the  fact,  and 
gives  an  inadequate  reason  for  it.  Why  tell  us  of 
Semiramis  and  Maria  Theresa,  of  Vittoria  Colonna 
and  Mrs.  Browning,  of  Mrs.  Somerville  and  Miss 
Martineau,  down  to  Brynhilda  who  tied  up  King 
Gunther  and  Captain  Betsey  who  commands  the 
Scotch  brig  Cleotus  ?  These  great  names,  which 
shoot  so  high,  serve  but  to  measure  the  average 
growth.  Against  the  great  fact  of  subordination  of 
place  in  the  world's  history,  however,  is  to  be  placed 
another  fact  not  less  marked  and  important,  that 


The  Nature  of  Woman 

the  upward  progress  of  the  race  has  always  been 
accompanied  by  a  commensurate  increase  in  the  in- 
fluence of  women.  The  fact  to  which  Mr.  Buckle 
calls  attention,  that  in  the  palmiest  days  of  Athens 
the  influence  of  women  was  at  a  minimum,  is  strictly 
in  accordance  with  the  purely  intellectual,  and  there- 
fore narrow,  though  brilliant  civilisation  to  which 
alone  the  Greek  mind  attained.  It  serves  to  show 
how  large  a  part  of  intellectual  cultivation  may  be 
independent  of  the  woman,  and  how  incomplete  in 
such  independence  are  its  loftiest  achievements.  Mr. 
Buckle,  with  his  narrow  theory  of  civilisation,  rests 
the  matter  too  purely  on  considerations  of  intellec- 
tual conformation  ;  yet  it  can  scarcely  be  denied 
that  the  influence  of  women  is  less  at  the  present 
day  than  it  was  before  the  advent  of  what  may  be 
called  the  scientific  age,  that  our  material  civilisation 
is  the  result  of  effort  and  mental  activity  of  a  more 
specially  masculine  kind.  Both  our  forms  of  thought 
and  our  habits  of  industrial  life  have  become  too 
narrow  and  engrossing  :  and  this  defect  may  fairly 
be  attributed  (in  some  degree  at  least)  to  the  fact 
that  the  quick  advance  and  strong  leaning  in  one 
direction  of  the  men's  minds  has  separated  them  by 
a  sort  of  chasm  from  the  women  ;  and  depriving 
them  of  the  softening  and  enlarging  influence  of  the 
closer  companionship  of  the  latter,  has  left  these  too 
with  inadequate  resources  for  the  full  development 
of  their  faculties  and  natures. 

"  The  defects  of  our  present  social  condition  with 
respect  to  the  education  and  position  of  women,  are 
realjand  important ;  the  suggestion  of  remedies  most 
difficult.  The  question  is  so  complex,  casts  its  fine 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    151 

and  intertangled  roots  so  deep  into  the  groundwork 
of  all  our  political,  social,  and  domestic  status  ;  the 
elements  it  deals  with  are  so  fundamental,  and  the 
region  is  one  in  which  it  is  so  impossible  to  prophesy 
the  results  or  limit  the  consequences  of  the  changes, 
— that  to  approach  it  at  all  is  disheartening  to  any 
mind  capable  of  perceiving  the  mere  outline  of  its 
bearings ;  and  thoroughly  to  investigate  it  would 
require  a  comprehensiveness  of  grasp,  a  delicacy,  and 
a  patience  in  the  intellect  attempting  it,  which  is 
rarely  granted  to  the  children  of  men.  The  collision 
of  many  minds,  and  still  more  the  experience  wrung 
from  many  misdirected  efforts,  will  doubtless 
eventually  educe  a  more  or  less  complete  and  success- 
ful solution  of  the  problem.  Meanwhile  it  is  not 
surprising  that  most  minds  shrink  from  it  ;  and  that 
men  especially,  not  perceiving  how  deeply  their  own 
interests  are  engaged,  and  urged  by  no  immediate 
practical  stimulant,  for  the  most  part  push  the 
whole  question  impatiently  aside,  and,  with  a  dim 
impression  that  their  domestic  comforts  are  en- 
dangered, hold  by  the  old  maxim,  quieta  non  movere. 

"  *  For  points  obscure  are  of  small  use  to  learn, 
But  common  quiet  is  mankind's  concern.' 

They  tremble  at  the  bare  suggestion,  that  the 
delicacy,  purity,  and  self-forgetfulness  which  shine 
about  them,  and  restore  and  console  them  in  their 
coarse  and  sharp  conflicts  with  the  world  and  cir- 
cumstance, are  about  to  be  lost  to  them.  When 
they  are  told  that  women  are  like  men,  they  know 
too  surely  that  it  is  otherwise,  and  feel  deeply  that 
nothing  more  fatal  could  happen  than  that  they 
should  become  so.  The  wiser  women,  too,  see  the 


152          The  Nature  of  Woman 

extent  and  difficulty  of  the  subject,  and  prefer  to 
occupy  themselves  with  practical  effort  directed  to 
the  outlying  portions  of  it  which  lie  within  their 
reach.  Thus  the  matter,  as  is  usual  with  a  new  and 
complex  subject  of  reform,  falls  into  the  hands  of 
the  more  shallow  and  doctrinaire  minds  of  either 
sex  ;  wild  projects  and  untenable  theories  are  vented, 
and  met  on  the  other  side  by  undiscriminating 
sarcasm  and  ridicule. 

"  It  seems  strange  at  first  sight  that  women  them- 
selves, and  their  warmest  advocates  of  modern  days, 
should  rather  choose  to  urge  the  contest  for  ex- 
tended freedom  and  a  larger  scope  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  world's  affairs  from  the  basis  of  the  false 
idea  of  woman's  equality  with  and  similarity  to  man, 
instead  of  the  inexpugnable  position  of  her  real 
nature,  and  the  claims  which  it  gives  her  and  the 
duties  it  demands  from  her.  The  reason,  however, 
is  pretty  obvious.  The  advance  from  the  latter 
position  would  be  too  slow  :  progress  thence  must 
be  made  not  by  the  demand  of  assent  to  sweeping 
assertions  and  all-embracing  principles,  but  step  by 
step,  as  practical  wants,  proved  advantages,  and  safe 
means  prepare  and  open  the  way.  It  is  far  more 
tempting  to  be  a  brilliant  intellectual  pioneer, 
levelling  the  hills  and  making  straight  the  ways, 
than  one  of  those  quiet  engineers  of  the  world's 
progress  who  make  roads  bit  by  bit,  as  the  occasion 
for  them  arrives,  and  never  care  to  lay  them  down 
until  there  is  a  certainty  that  they  will  be  used,  and 
.profitably  used.  The  rights-of -woman  question  is 
in  much  the  same  position  Ww  that  the  rights-of- 
man  question  was  in  the  days  of  Tom  Paine. 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    153 

Society  reconstructed  on  the  basis  of  the  rights  of 
woman  as  urged  in  their  full  extent,  would  be  in 
a  yet  worse  position  than  if  we  framed  new  schemes 
of  government  on  the  theory  of  the  natural  equality 
of  men. 

"  It  is  a  pleasant  exercise  of  the  imagination  to  re- 
arrange the  world  on  an  hypothesis  of  what  woman 
would  be  if  her  course  of  training  and  mode  of  life 
were  entirely  altered.  The  effect  of  this,  some  bold 
assertors  maintain,  would  be  so  complete,  that 
(except  during  her  confinements)  she  would  be  in 
every  respect  identical  with  man.  Others  hold  that 
she  would  be  distinguished  from  him  by  retaining 
all  her  own  superiority,  while  she  absorbed  all  his 
special  attributes.  She  would  be  more  chaste,  more 
refined,  more  virtuous,  more  religious ;  not  less  bold, 
persevering,  thoughtful,  and  comprehensive.  These 
are  engaging  speculations,  and  we  will  not  be  rash 
enough  to  discuss  what  the  future  may  have  in  store  : 

"'Heaven  from  all  creatures  hides  the  book  of  Fate, 
All  but  the  page  prescribed, — their  present  state.' 

All  we  wish  to  call  attention  to  is  the  fact  that  the 
main  object  for  our  attention  is  women  as  they  are, 
not  women  as  they  are  not. 

"  That  hitherto  women  have  ever  been  different 
from  men,  has  not  been  very  seriously  disputed ; 
and  the  vast  number  of  instances  in  which  their 
several  characters  approach,  intermingle,  and  even 
interchange,  has  not  been  held  either  by  profound 
thinkers  or  agricultural  labourers  to  efface,  or  even 
to  obscure,  the  permanent  distinctions  of  sex  : 

"  '  If  black  and  white  blend,  soften  and  unite 

A  thousand  ways,  is  there  no  black  and  white  ? ' 


i54          The  Nature  of  Woman 

Probably  the  agricultural  labourer  has  the  best  of  it 
in  the  clearness  of  his  conviction  as  to  the  reality  of 
the  distinction  :  the  thinker,  in  trying  to  eliminate 
what  is  common,  and  appreciate  the  exact  nature 
of  the  differences,  gets  hopelessly  bewildered  among 
the  grays,  and  loses  all  clear  perception  of  the  two 
original  colours.  Meanwhile  the  labourer  knows 
from  daily  experience  that  he  is  not  the  same  sort 
of  creature  as  his  wife. 

"  Are  the  minds  of  women,  however,  different  from 
those  of  men  ?  The  indignation  with  which  this  is 
so  often  denied  seems  to  indicate  a  deeply  fixed  im- 
pression that  the  male  type  of  mind,  or  what  passes 
for  such,  is  the  higher  in  order  and  the  most  to  be 
desired.  We  are  not  quite  sure  that  this  is  so  ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  are  pretty  confident  that  there 
are  real  and  deep-seated  distinctions  between  the 
two  classes  of  minds.  Mr.  Buckle  says  women  have 
more  deductive  intellects  than  men.  Whether  they 
more  often  reason  deductively  than  inductively 
depends  a  good  deal  on  the  vexed  question  whether 
it  is  by  induction  they  get  their  general  ideas.  But 
few  will  be  disposed  to  deny  that  they  resort  to 
general  ideas  more  readily  and  generally  than  men 
do,  and  lean  upon  them  with  greater  confidence. 

"  The  most  obvious  characteristics  of  the  feminine 
intellect  are  delicacy  of  perceptive  power  and 
rapidity  of  movement.  A  woman  sees  a  thousand 
things  which  escape  a  man.  Physically  even  she  is 
quicker  sighted.  A  girl  is  a  better  bird-nest er  than 
a^boy  :  a  woman  marks  a  thing/which  passes  over  a 
man's  eye  too  rapidly  for  him/to  perceive  it.  Men- 
tally she  takes  in  many  more  impressions  in  the  same 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    155 

time  than  a  man  does.  A  woman  will  have  mastered 
the  minutest  details  in  another  woman's  dress,  and 
noted  all  the  evidences  of  character  in  her  face, 
before  a  man  who  has  been  equally  occupied  in 
examining  her  knows  the  details  of  her  features. 
And  the  '  fine  and  nimble  minds,'  as  Mr.  Buckle 
eloquently  calls  them,  of  the  other  sex,  not  only  note 
rapidly,  but  with  not  less  swiftness  of  movement 
they  work  out  results.  Mr.  Buckle  is  no  doubt  right 
in  the  kind  of  influence  he  ascribes  to  the  intellect 
of  women,  and  has  done  them  no  more  than  justice 
in  the  wide  scope  he  has  given  to  its  range,  and  the 
high  place  he  has  assigned  to  its  importance.  It  may 
be  questioned,  however,  whether  he  is  very  correct 
in  saying  that  the  value  of  the  female  intellect  to  the 
advancement  of  knowledge  springs  from  its  deduc- 
tive character.  It  is  not  as  deductive  reasoners  that 
women  have  advanced  the  conquests  of  thought. 
They  have  never  signalised  themselves  by  a  methodic 
and  skilfully  executed  inroad  on  the  surrounding 
realms  of  ignorance  such  as  those  of  Newton  or 
Liebig.  Of  the  three  constituent  processes  which 
Mr.  Mill  describes  as  making  up  the  deductive 
method,  it  is  in  its  contributions  to  the  first  (if  that 
be  a  process)  that  the  female  mind  is  best  calculated 
to  be  of  service.  It  is  valuable  not  so  much  in  con- 
ducting deductive  operations  as  in  furnishing  and 
suggesting  the  materials  for  deductive  thought.  It 
is  an  inexhaustible  fountain  of  those  general  ideas 
(whether  derived  from  induction  or  not)  on  which 
deductive  reasoning  is  based  ;  but  it  rarely  employs 
itself  in  an  exhaustive  inquiry  as  to  the  operation  or 
consequences  of  that  general  idea.  Its  habit  is  to 


156         The  Nature  of  Woman 

use  it  for  the  elucidation  of  some  particular  simple 
case  within  it,  and  then  to  cast  it  aside.  A  woman's 
mind  is  probably  not  less  occupied  in  induction  than 
in  deduction.  It  is  constantly  ascending  with 
rapidity  from  few  facts  to  a  general  idea,  and  coming 
down  on  a  particular.  A  man's  mind  ascends  slowly 
through  many  particulars ;  but  having  gained  the 
broader  platform,  he  endeavours  to  master  all  that 
can  be  seen  from  it.  The  question  of  the  extent  of 
women's  inductive  exercise  of  mind  depends  upon 
the  vexed  question  how  far  the  ideas  they  strike  out 
with  so  much  fecundity  are  the  result  of  unconscious 
induction  or  simple  insight  :  but  either  they  have  a 
marvellous  lightning-like  faculty  of  induction,  or  a 
perhaps  still  more  inexplicable  one  of  direct  mental 
insight.  Whatever  range,  however,  we  may  ascribe 
to  this  latter  faculty,  it  still  remains  certain  that 
women  are  incessant  and  rapid  generalisers,  and  also 
often  hasty  and  rash  ones.  The  nature  of  their 
imagination  tends  in  the  same  direction.  It  is  not 
perhaps  so  comprehensive  as  that  of  man  ;  it  has  not 
the  same  power  of  at  once  presenting  a  subject 
vividly,  and  holding  it  steadily  and  continuously 
before  the  mind  ;  it  is  not  perhaps  so  searching  :  but 
it  is  much  quicker  in  its  movements,  and  in  much 
more  constant  operation  ;  it  is  far  more  of  an  every- 
day working  faculty,  and  far  more  universally  used 
by  women  than  by  men  as  a  ministrant  in  the  opera- 
tion of  thought.  Hitherto,  however,  the  former 
have  rarely,  if  ever,  struck  out  by  its  aid  any  of  those 
brilliant  theories  by  which  men  of  genius  seize  a 
truth  yet  hidden  from  and  undreamt  of  by  common 
minds,  and  cut  with  one  fine  bold  stroke  many  a 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    157 

Gordian  knot  of  knowledge.  They  use  it  to  inquire 
what  they  are  to  do  to-day  and  to-morrow, — to  read 
the  hearts  and  to  calculate  the  actions  of  those 
around  them. 

"  If  we  were  called  upon  to  indicate  the  most 
marked  and  deep-seated  distinction  between  the 
minds  of  men  and  women,  we  should  say  that  the 
minds  of  men  rested  in  generals  and  were  stored 
with  particulars,  and  that  the  minds  of  women 
rested  in  particulars  and  were  prolific  in  general 
ideas.  Men,  it  is  said,  are  occupied  with  facts,  and 
so  they  are  ;  but  it  is  the  characteristic  of  the 
highest  and  most  typically  masculine  intellects 
always  to  be  pressing  through  facts  on  to  the 
principle  which  binds  them  together,  and  to  base 
their  lives  and  practice  on  the  results  thus  attained. 
Women,  it  is  said,  are  always  rushing  into  general 
ideas ;  so  they  are  ;  but  it  is  as  a  way  to  particular 
facts,  and  they  move  from  and  are  guided  by  the 
special  relations  thus  educed.  The  women,  we 
repeat,  base  themselves  on  the  general  ideas,  but 
move  from  the  deduced  fact ;  the  men  base  them- 
selves on  the  facts,  and  move  from  the  deduced 
principle. 

"  And  the  mind  of  a  woman  is  more  fluid,  as  it 
were,  than  that  of  a  man  ;  it  moves  more  easily,  and 
its  operations  have  a  less  cohesive  and  permanent 
character.  A  woman  thinks  transiently,  and  in  a 
hand-to-mouth  sort  of  way.  She  makes  a  new 
observation  and  a  new  deduction  for  each  case,  and 
constantly  also  a  new  general  idea.  A  man,  less 
quick  and  less  fertile,  accumulates  facts,  collects 
them  in  classes,  and  combines  them  by  principles ; 


158          The  Nature  of  Woman 

a  woman's  mind  is  a  running  stream,  ever  emptying 
itself  and  ever  freshly  supplied.  She  takes  a  bucket- 
ful when  she  wants  it.  A  man's  mind  is  a  reservoir 
arranged  to  work  a  water-wheel.  Women  are 
scarcely  less  steady  and  persevering  than  men  in  the 
pursuit  of  practical  ends  :  they  are  more  full  of  re- 
sources and  expedients ;  they  have  a  greater  appre- 
ciation of,  and  a  far  greater  power  of  wielding, 
small  and  indirect  influences — they  have  tact ;  but 
they  do  not  discuss  practical  matters  efficiently 
when  met  together  ;  they  become  discursive,  set 
larks  and  run  hares ;  each  is  occupied  with  her  own 
idea,  and  several  speak  together.  They  do  the  work 
excellently  :  they  do  not  shine  in  the  committee- 
room. 

"  Connected  with  these  distinctions  is  the  fact 
that  the  knowledge  of  women  is  for  the  most  part 
direct,  unreferred,  and  unclassified  ;  they  differ  from 
men  in  having  far  more  varied,  subtle,  and  numerous 
inlets  to  knowledge  ;  and  they  rely  upon  these,  and 
do  not  care  to  remember  and  arrange  previous  ex- 
perience, as  a  man  does.  A  lady  will  look  a  servant 
who  comes  to  be  hired  in  the  face,  and  say  he  is  not 
honest.  She  cannot  tell  you  why  she  thinks  so.  She 
says  she  does  not  like  his  expression,  she  feels  he  is 
not  honest, — no  consideration  would  induce  her  to 
take  him  into  her  service.  He  has  the  best  of  charac- 
ters, and  you  engage  him  :  he  robs  you, — you  may 
be  quite  sure  he  will  do  that.  Years  after  another 
man  comes :  the  same  lady  looks  him  in  the  face,  and 
says  he  too  is  not  honest ;  she  says  so  again  fresh  from 
her  mere  insight,  but  you  also  say  he  is  not  honest. 
You  say,  I  remember  I  had  a  servant  with  just  the 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    159 

same  look  about  him  three  years  ago,  and  he  robbed 
me.  This  is  one  great  distinction  of  the  female  in- 
tellect ;  it  walks  directly  and  unconsciously,  by  more 
delicate  insight  and  a  more  refined  and  more  trusted 
intuition,  to  an  end  to  which  men's  minds  grope 
carefully  and  ploddingly  along.  Women  have 
exercised  a  most  beneficial  influence  in  softening  the 
hard  and  untruthful  outline  which  knowledge  is  apt 
to  assume  in  the  hands  of  direct  scientific  observers 
and  experimenters  :  they  have  prevented  the  casting 
aside  of  a  mass  of  most  valuable  truth,  which  is  too 
fine  to  be  caught  in  the  material  sieve,  and  eludes  the 
closest  questioning  of  the  microscope  and  the  test- 
glass  ;  which  is  allied  with  our  passions,  our  feelings, 
and  especially  holds  the  fine  boundary-line  where 
mind  and  matter,  sense  and  spirit,  wave  their  floating 
and  indistinguishable  boundaries,  and  exercise  their 
complex  action  and  reaction.  Women,  acting  faith- 
fully on  their  intuitions  in  such  things,  and  justified 
by  the  event,  teach  men  also  to  rely  upon  them  in 
their  lives,  to  give  them  place  in  their  philosophy  ; 
and  incalculably  widening,  ennobling,  and  refining 
is  the  influence  they  have  thus  had  upon  what  the 
world  calls  its  knowledge.  But  their  influence,  like 
their  knowledge,  has  been  direct,  immediate,  applied 
to  particular  cases ;  and  it  has  never,  therefore,  been 
very  generally  recognised,  or  moved  in  us  the  grati- 
tude that  is  due  from  us. 

"  The  characteristics  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
nature  of  women  are  closely  allied  with  those  of 
their  intellect.  Their  superiority  in  all  that  depends 
on  intuition  ;  their  higher  apprehension  of  and  fuller 
life  in  personal  relations,  as  distinguished  both  from 


i6o          The  Nature  of  Woman 

material  things  and  abstract  ideas  ;  their  deeper 
power  of  influencing  and  greater  dependence  on 
individuals,  as  contrasted  with  a  wider  power  exer- 
cised over  numbers, — are  too  obvious  not  to  have 
been  often  made  the  subject  of  remark. 

"It  is  an  idle  question  which  is  the  higher  in 
creation  when  each  is  in  an  equal  degree  supplemental 
to  the  other  ;  but  if  the  point  must  be  mooted,  per- 
haps the  following  consideration  may  indicate  the 
true  solution  : 

"  If  we  glance  through  the  various  divisions  of  the 
animal  kingdom,  we  shall  find  that  the  most  perfect 
forms  of  each  division  are  not  those  through  which 
it  passes  into  the  class  next  above  it.  It  is  not  the 
horse  or  the  foxhound  which  treads  on  the  heels  of 
man,  but  the  baboon  ;  it  is  not  the  rose  or  the 
oak  which  stands  on  the  verge  of  vegetable  and 
animal  life,  but  the  fern  or  the  sea-weed.  Something 
is  lost  of  the  typical  completeness  of  each  class  as  it 
approaches  the  verge  of  that  above  it.  The  same  is 
true  of  man  ;  it  is  not  necessarily  the  most  healthy 
and  highly  developed  specimen  which  is  nearest  a 
higher  order  of  beings ;  and  in  the  distinction  of 
sexes,  if  man  be  the  more  perfect  creature,  woman  is 
nearer  to  the  angels.  Woman  is  higher  than  man  in 
her  nature  ;  she  is  less  noble  in  the  degree  of  self- 
control  and  independent  responsibility  imposed 
upon  her.  To  man,  with  instincts  less  pure,  in- 
tuition less  deep,  sensibilities  less  fine,  and  a  heart 
less  faithful  and  unselfish,  has  been  given  a  weightier 
charge — to  be  more  entirely  under  his  own  control, 
to  be  more  completely  master  of  himself.  Often  has 
human  existence  been  compared  to  the  wide  ocean, 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    161 

over  which  each  winged  ship  of  individual  life 
struggles  forward  through  storm  and  sunshine.  Man 
sets  the  sail  and  leans  over  the  wheel,  bends  his  eye 
on  the  compass  and  the  chart,  questions  the  heavens 
of  his  place,  and  considers  with  anxious  revolving 
mind  what  port  it  were  best  to  seek  and  what  course 
to  make  ;  asks  even  whether  there  be  an  ultimate 
haven  and  a  pathway  across  the  deep  ;  and,  bent  on 
knowing  rather  than  trusting,  questions  the  silent 
unresponsive  stars,  and  casts  his  lead  in  the  fathom- 
less ocean.  But  woman  bears  a  loadstone  in  her 
breast,  and,  standing  on  the  prow,  gazes  forward 
over  the  waves,  and  is  drawn  heavenward  by  some 
strong  attraction.  Devious  gusts  of  passion  blow  her 
astray  ;  and  losing  once  her  track,  sudden  and  utter 
shipwreck  on  sunken  rocks  or  sand  too  often  awaits 
her  ;  but  originally  she  has  but  to  be  true  to  her 
highest  intuitions,  and  needs  not  nor  cares  to  distract 
her  mind  with  questionings  of  the  event.  Her 
nature  is  higher  than  man's ;  but  man  is  set  higher 
above  his  nature.  To  speak  thus  is  of  course  to 
express,  in  unmodified  language,  the  extreme  ten- 
dencies of  either  sex.  We  do  not  mean  that  men 
have  no  intuitions,  or  women  no  consciences,  only 
that  each  is  stronger  and  fuller  in  one  direction  than 
the  other.  And  the  differences  between  male  and 
female  consciences  illustrate  the  same  thing.  The 
sense  of  duty,  the  instinct  of  right,  has  in  itself  no 
discriminating  power  ;  it  simply  asserts  in  its  very 
action,  whenever  called  into  exercise,  a  higher  claim 
to  the  obedience  of  the  will  than  any  other  of  our 
moving  impulses.  But  it  does  not  itself  decide  on  a 
course  of  action,  any  more  than  hunger  tells  us  what 

L 


1 62          The  Nature  of  Woman 

to  eat.  Conscience  is  the  reason  brought  to  bear  on 
the  sense  of  duty,  rather  say  it  is  the  verdict  of  the 
reason  (using  the  word  in  its  large  sense)  enforced  by 
the  sense  of  duty.  In  men  destitute  of  judgment 
and  force  of  character  we  sometimes  see  strange 
vagaries  of  the  intuition  of  duty ;  and  in  women, 
in  whom  the  reason  is  less  comprehensive  and  less 
distinctly  supreme  over  the  impulses,  the  conscience 
is  not  less  binding,  but  it  is  certainly  less  consistent 
than  in  men.  It  yields  to  personal  considerations,  it 
falls  under  the  sway  of  the  affections.  You  may  see 
one  woman  morbidly  conscientious  in  the  discharge 
of  some  remote  duty ;  and  not  only  neglecting,  as  a 
man  often  does,  others  more  near  and  more  im- 
portant, but  incapable  of  being  convinced  that  they 
are  duties.  You  may  see  another  in  her  ordinary 
intercourse  with  those  around  her  utterly  disregard 
all  the  claims  of  sincerity  ;  yet  there  shall  be  some 
one  whom  she  loves  to  whom  she  is  as  clear  as  day, 
and  in  intercourse  with  whom  she  would  not  only 
not  conceal,  but  think  it  wicked  to  conceal  or  distort 
the  least  circumstance.  Where  women  do  feel  a 
duty,  however,  they  are  generally  more  exact  and 
scrupulous  in  the  performance  of  it  than  men. 
Their  sins  are  for  the  most  part  sins  against  higher 
impulses,  the  simple  permission  of  a  lower  impulse 
to  outweigh  a  higher  one  where  the  collision  is  so 
simple  that  the  judgment  has  no  place.  A  man  feels 
more  deeply  a  sin  against  his  deliberate  convictions ; 
he  throws  the  sins  of  impulse  aside  more  lightly, 
especially  if  the  temptation  has  been  strong  and 
sudden  ;  but  they  weigh  heavier  on  a  woman,  and 
they  degrade  her  the  more  because  her  character 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    163 

does  depend  more  on  the  unbroken  strength  of  her 
higher  impulses.  Again,  compassion  to  the  indi- 
vidual is  the  woman's  virtue,  justice  to  all  the  man's. 
But  there  is  no  need  to  point  out  the  familiar 
operation  of  the  more  intuitive  nature  of  woman 
finding  its  life  among  personal  relations ;  suffice  it 
that  out  of  these  spring  her  gracious  prerogative  and 
happiest  attribute — the  power  to  live  in  others, 
through  the  affections  to  enjoy  self-sacrifice,  and, 
high  above  these,  the  faculty  through  love  to  discern 
and  rest  upon  a  personal  God.  We  do  not  say  that 
the  influence  of  women  has  kept  personal  religion 
alive  in  the  world  ;  yet  the  truth  lies  not  far  from 
this ;  and  certainly  there  are  thousands  of  men  who 
owe  it  to  her  alone  that  they  have  ever  soared  above 
a  cold  and  stoical  conscientiousness.  This  is  a 
higher  office  than  preaching,  or  legislating,  or  '  in- 
culcating ideas,'  or  rivalling  men  in  any  of  the  more 
general  but  less  profound  influences  they  exercise 
over  their  fellows. 

"  There  is  a  vast  deal  which  women  have  taught 
men,  and  men  have  then  taught  the  world  ;  and 
which  the  men  alone  have  had  the  credit  for,  be- 
cause the  woman's  share  is  untraceable.  But,  cry 
some  of  our  modern  ladies,  this  is  exactly  what  we 
wish  to  avoid  ;  we  can  teach  the  world  directly,  and 
we  insist  on  being  allowed  to  do  so.  If  our  sphere 
has  been  hitherto  more  personal,  it  is  because  you 
have  forced  seclusion  and  restriction  upon  us. 
Educate  us  like  yourselves,  and  we  shall  be  compe- 
tent to  fill  the  same  place  as  you  do,  and  discharge 
the  same  duties.  With  extreme  deference,  we  do 
not  think  this  is  quite  so  ;  we  cannot  believe,  what  is 


1 64          The  Nature  of  Woman 

nowadays  so  broadly  asserted,  that  the  difference 
between  the  male  and  female  intellect  is  due  en- 
tirely to  difference  of  education  and  circumstance, 
and  that  women,  placed  under  the  same  conditions 
as  men,  would  become  men  except  in  the  bare 
physical  distinctions  of  sex.  If  the  education  and 
lives  of  women  have  been  so  utterly  obliterative  of 
such  important  qualities,  it  seems  strange  they  should 
have  retained  what  they  have  got.  No  influences 
have  succeeded  in  making  them  stupid,  in  destroying 
the  spring  and  vivacity  of  their  minds,  their  readi- 
ness, their  facility,  their  abundant  resource.  Yet 
their  education  has  been  little,  if  at  all,  directed  to 
foster  these  qualities  more  than  those  of  reflection 
and  comprehensive  thought.  Reverse  the  question. 
Do  not  men  in  innumerable  instances  develop  the 
characteristic  masculine  intellect  in  all  its  force, 
totally  irrespective  of  any  training  whatever  :  and 
is  it  supposed  that  any  care,  however  sedulous, 
would  make  the  mass  of  men  rivals  of  the  mass  of 
women  in  those  qualities  which  we  have  indicated 
as  specially  belonging  to  the  latter  ?  But  it  is 
fighting  with  shadows  to  combat  such  an  assertion. 
The  evidence  of  facts  against  it  is  scattered,  minute, 
appealing  in  varied  form  to  individual  minds  and 
experiences ;  but  it  is  overwhelming  to  all  but  the 
most  prejudiced  minds.  On  the  other  hand,  none 
will  deny  that  much  is  due  to  education  ;  nor  can 
any  limits  be  assigned  a  'priori  to  the  intellectual 
achievements  of  which  a  judicious  training  might 
make  the  female  mind  capable.  We  only  say  that 
men  with  equal  advantages  will  go  further  in  their 
own  direction.  The  same  pains  bestowed  on  an 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    165 

average  boy  and  girl  will  not  make  the  girl  so 
patient  and  accurate  an  investigator  as  the  boy  ;  but 
neither  will  it  give  the  boy  so  quick  and  suggestive 
a  mind  as  that  of  the  girl.  There  can  be  no  doubt, 
however,  that  our  modern  system  of  female  educa- 
tion does  great  injustice  and  injury  to  the  subjects  of 
it ;  part  of  education  at  least  ought  to  be  directed  to 
preserving  the  balance  of  faculties.  In  saying  this, 
we  do  not  urge,  as  some  have  done,  that  its  office  is 
to  create  and  maintain  an  equilibrium  of  powers, 
and  that  those  which  are  naturally  the  most  strong 
should  be  allowed  to  rest  in  the  vain  endeavour  to 
place  the  weaker  ones  on  a  level  with  them  ;  that 
because  a  boy  has  a  taste  for  languages  you  should 
confine  him  to  mathematics,  or  because  he  is  a 
soldier  by  nature  try  to  make  him  a  clergyman  by 
profession  :  the  true  rule  probably  is,  to  give  by 
education  the  strongest  propulsion  in  the  direction 
in  which  a  man  naturally  leans,  provided  it  be  a 
desirable  one,  and  at  the  same  time  sedulously  to 
guard  against  absolute  deficiency  in  any  other 
direction  ;  to  preserve  an  impetus,  and  to  guard 
against  an  overbalance.  We  shall  make  nothing  of 
attempting  to  make  men  of  women  ;  but  there  re- 
mains much  to  be  done  in  opposition  to  a  system 
which  hems  them  so  closely  within  certain  limits  of 
range,  and  urges  them  so  exclusively  along  the  dis- 
tinctively feminine  path.  All  honour  to  those  who, 
without  losing  sight  of  insurmountable  and  in- 
effaceable distinctions,  bend  their  practical  efforts 
to  giving  a  broader  and  completer  character  to  the 
education  of  girls,  and  insist  that  they  shall  not  be 
debarred  from  studies,  and,  above  all,  from  modes  of 


1 66         The  Nature  of  Woman 

study,  which  strengthen  and  invigorate  the  reflective 
powers. 

"  Those  modern  Amazons  who  insist  upon  setting 
up  their  sex  as  a  separate  class  of  beings,  naturally  at 
enmity  with  man,  and  by  him  unjustly  subjugated 
and  ignorantly  tyrannised  over,  are  fond  of  speaking 
of  us  as  if  we  either  followed  a  Machiavellian  policy 
in  keeping  our  wives  and  daughters  ignorant,  or  as 
if  as  a  matter  of  taste  we  preferred  to  associate  with 
ignorant  females  that  we  may  rejoice  in  our 
superiority.  This  is  a  mistake.  No  doubt  Lieu- 
tenant Smith,  skilled  only  in  horses,  does  dislike  a 
young  lady  to  mention  Dante  ;  and  Jones,  who  has 
contracted  all  he  once  knew  into  a  familiarity  with 
the  prices  and  quality  of  cotton,  trembles  to  be 
asked  what  Kepler's  laws  are  ;  but  it  is  an  error  to 
suppose  that  educated  men  prefer  the  society  of 
uninformed  women.  Perhaps,  indeed,  there  is  no 
intellectual  exercise  so  delightful,  or  so  highly  ap- 
preciated on  either  side,  as  the  interchange  of  ideas 
between  cultivated  minds  of  the  different  sexes. 
From  a  female  mind  on  a  level  with  his  own  a  man 
gathers  much  more  that  is  new  and  interesting  to 
him  than  from  conversation  with  a  fellow-man  ;  he 
sees  a  new  side  of  old  ideas,  and  is  presented  with  a 
thousand  delicate  suggestions  beyond  the  reach  of 
his  own  faculties ;  nay,  often  when  his  mind  is 
saturated  with  knowledge  which  yet  forms  a  turbid 
incoherent  mass,  the  touch  of  a  woman's  mind,  some 
hint — vague  perhaps,  but  far-reaching — will  make  it 
shoot  into  sudden  crystalline  harmony.  It  is  idle  to 
say  that  men,  whenever  they  are  worthy  of  it,  do  not 
appreciate  this  sort  of  intercourse,  that  they  do  not 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    167 

consider  it  one  of  the  highest  pleasures  of  their  lives. 
But  they  hate,  and  most  justly  hate,  women  who 
parade  their  knowledge  and  their  cleverness  for  the 
gratification  of  their  own  vanity,  who  are  so  narrow- 
minded  that  they  can  talk  nothing  but  information, 
and  so  indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of  others  as  to 
obtrude  it  on  them  without  regard  to  the  occasion. 
Bores  are  selfish,  callous,  pachydermatous  animals ; 
and  these  qualities  are  peculiarly  disagreeable  in 
women.  This  is  a  class  all  agree  to  avoid  ;  but  that 
intellectual  culture  of  the  very  highest  order  to 
which  they  can  attain  is  not  as  good  and  as  desirable 
for  women  as  it  is  for  men,  none  but  those  who  are 
either  narrow-minded,  or  themselves  ignorant,  will 
care  to  deny.  Of  course  the  pursuit  of  intellectual 
excellence  must  not  in  women  interfere  with  higher 
and  nearer  duties ;  but  neither  must  it  do  so  in  men  ; 
and  the  only  real  difference  which  exists  is,  that  the 
natural  pursuits  of  men  make  a  severe  training  of  the 
intellect  and  a  complete  stocking  of  the  mind  more 
universally  and  necessarily  a  duty  with  them  than 
with  women.  Do  any  women  complain  of  this  ? 
Much  more  justly  might  men  regret  that  the  arrange- 
ments of  society  and  the  necessities  of  life  leave  them 
so  much  less  opportunity  than  women  for  the  culti- 
vation of  the  heart.  The  greatest  deficiency  in 
female  education  is,  and  ever  has  been,  the  absence 
of  means  for  forming  trained  habits  of  thought ;  and 
it  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  of  the  rash  and 
desultory  reasoning  of  women,  and  their  want  of 
amenableness  to  logical  proof,  is  the  result  of  their 
defective  education.  An  opinion  of  female  tact,  in- 
sight into  character,  and  intuitions  of  management 


1 68         The  Nature  of  Woman 

formed  in  the  harems  o£  the  East,  would  not  differ 
widely  from  one  formed  in  the  drawing-rooms  of 
London  ;  but  the  estimates  of  intellectual  capacity 
made  in  the  two  places  would  vary  as  if  made  of  two 
different  kinds  of  creatures. 

"  There  is  no  bitterer  satire  passed,  or  graver  in- 
justice done  to  women,  than  by  those  of  their  own 
sex  who  assume  so  passionately  that  everything  that 
is  masculine  must  be  desirable  for  women,  and  better 
than  what  they  have  of  their  own  ;  and  who  quit  the 
pleasant  glories  of  their  own  seats,  to  sally  out  and 
snatch  the  most  rugged  and  outlying  bits  of  the 
territory  of  their  neighbour  man.  Women  must  be 
true  to  their  own  high  qualities  and  important 
duties,  if  they  are  to  draw  men  up  to  themselves  in 
those  many  points  in  which  we  are  inferior  to  them  ; 
and  men  must  cease  egotistically  to  assume  that  they 
hold  an  incontestably  higher  place,  and  learn  that  it 
will  benefit  themselves  in  many  respects  to  become 
more  of  women,  and  that  the  more  they  approach 
women  on  the  higher  side  of  their  characters,  the 
less  danger  there  will  be  of  their  becoming  effeminate, 
i.e.  approaching  them  in  their  weaknesses.  '  Men,' 
says  a  Westminster  reviewer,  e  cannot  retain  manli- 
ness unless  women  acquire  it.'  It  is  true,  feeble 
women  make  feeble  men,  and  vice  versa  ;  but  it  is 
not  true  that  the  reverse  of  a  feeble  woman  is  a 
manly  woman.  A  manly  woman  is  a  very  feeble 
man,  a  feeble  man  is  a  manly  woman.  But  a  strong 
man  is  a  strong  man,  and  a  strong  woman  is — 
strange  as  it  may  sound  to  the  reviewer — a  strong 
woman,  and  not  the  less  a  true  woman,  and  very 
different  from  what  we  call  a  strong-minded  one. 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    169 

A  great  deal  of  the  false  extreme  to  which  the  claim 
for  women  of  male  functions  is  pushed  arises  from 
its  having  sprung  from  the  real  wants  of  a  certain 
class,  and  having  been  argued  too  exclusively  from 
the  position  and  point  of  view  of  its  members.  It  is 
the  common,  though  unexpressed,  assumption  of  this 
body  of  female-right  vindicators,  that  unmarried 
women  and  unprotected  females  constitute  the  sex  ; 
and  that  to  meet  their  wants  they  have  a  right  to 
demand  that  the  arrangements  of  society  shall  be 
upset  and  remodelled.  They  have  a  right,  and  a  very 
fair  right,  to  demand  that  room  shall  be  made  for 
them  in  our  social  organisation,  and  may  justly,  to 
some  extent,  complain  that,  under  our  present 
arrangements,  the  avenues  to  occupation  and  the 
gaining  of  an  independent  livelihood  are  too  much 
choked  against  them  ;  but  they  have  no  right  what- 
ever to  judge  of  the  nature  of  all  women,  and  the 
field  of  circumstance  best  adapted  to  them,  accord- 
ing to  the  wants  and  ideas  of  this  section  of  them. 
It  should  be  remembered  that  of  women  these  are 
the  least  truly  women,  and  that  it  is  most  misleading 
to  assume  them  as  representatives  of  their  sex. 
There  are  two  ways  in  which  women  and  men  ap- 
proach and  modify  one  another.  The  one  is  where 
they  are  drawn  together  by  the  affections,  where 
mutual  sympathies,  moral  and  intellectual,  are 
aroused  : '  Les  gouts  se  communiquent,  les  sentimens 
se  repandent,  les  idees  deviennent  communes,  les 
facultes  intellectuelles  se  modelent  mutuellement.' 
Yet  so  far  are  they  from  being  merged  in  one  an- 
other by  this  union,  that  each  sex  acquires  from  it 
its  most  complete  and  characteristic  development ; 


1 70          The  Nature  of  Woman 

each  gains  from  the  other,  and  strengthens  what  it 
has  best  of  its  own  ;  they  approach  not  by  abnega- 
tions, but  by  additions,  each  from  the  other,  of  what 
is  necessary  to  raise  either  man  or  woman  to  the  full- 
ness of  the  perfect  creature.  The  other  mode  of 
approach  is  the  reverse  of  this,  where  men  brought 
up  apart  from  women,  and  women  debarred  more 
or  less  from  the  society  of  men,  lose  not  only  the 
benefit  of  what  each  can  give  the  other,  but  some- 
thing of  the  truest  characteristics  of  their  own  sex, 
which  are  not  developed  in  their  fullness  and  beauty 
except  when  the  affections  and  sympathies,  aroused 
by  free  intercourse,  have  their  full  play.  These  men 
and  women  approach  on  a  sort  of  neutral  ground. 
Such  women  are  more  of  men  than  the  others ;  but 
it  is  because  they  are  less  of  women  :  the  two  grow 
like  one  another  by  respective  loss,  not  by  respective 
gain.  Many  things  which  these  more  neutral  women 
may  dare  and  do  without  injury  are  not  fitted  for 
more  real  women.  Many  circumstances  which  will 
suit  the  one  will  not  suit  the  other.  If  society  can  be 
arranged, — and  doubtless,  as  far  as  the  defectiveness 
of  human  arrangements  will  allow,  it  both  can  and 
ought  to  be, — so  as  to  give  free  scope  to  both,  this  is 
what  is  most  of  all  things  to  be  desired  ;  but  if  the 
two  come  into  competition,  it  is  clear  which  ought 
to  receive  the  advantage.  Yet  almost  invariably  it  is 
the  position  of  the  neutral  class  which  is  specially  had 
in  view,  and  to  whose  supposed  wants  changes  are 
to  be  adapted.  We  do  not  say  this  is  exclusively  so, 
but  we  do  say  that  the  great  mass  of  thought  and 
disputation  on  this  subject  is  imbued  with  this  idea, 
and  that  many  arguments  professing  to  be  adapted 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    171 

to  the  wants  and  position  of  all  women  are  in  reality 
only  applicable  to  this  portion  of  them  ;  and  often  it 
is  plainly  said,  '  we  do  not  care  for  wives  and  mothers 
— they  are  well  provided  for,  they  have  husbands  and 
children  ;  '  but  husbands  and  fathers  take  an  interest 
in  this  class  of  women,  and  they  will  naturally  con- 
tinue to  look  at  the  question  almost  too  exclusively 
from  this  side.  The  real  difficulty  is,  as  to  the  in- 
fluence to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  young  women 
whose  destiny  in  life  is  as  yet  undecided,  of  whom 
none  can  tell  whether  they  are  to  encounter  those 
perils  of  matrimony  over  which  decadescent  virgins 
sigh  so  aifectingly,  or  are  to  enjoy  what  has  been 
indulgently  or  ironically  called  the  state  of  single 
blessedness.  Are  women  to  be  brought  up  to  be 
wives  or  unmarried  independent  women,  or  can  an 
education  be  devised  which  will  adapt  them  equally 
well  to  be  either  ?  If  there  can,  this  is  the  thing  to 
be  aimed  at  ;  but  is  this  the  thing  which  the  more 
enlightened  reprovers  of  what  are  pleasantly  called 
female  wrongs  do  aim  at  ?  Doubtless  the  education 
of  girls  has  hitherto  fallen  short  of  both  these  aims, 
and  confined  itself  in  great  measure  to  teaching 
them,  not  things  most  advantageous  to  themselves 
either  in  the  married  or  unmarried  state,  but  things 
adapted  to  get  them  married.  Still  the  whole  mass 
of  social  opinion  about  women,  the  conventional 
influences  which  surround  and  mould  them,  are 
mainly  adapted  to  their  position  as  wives  and 
mothers.  We  are  by  no  means  disposed  to  deny  that 
both  the  direct  training  of  girls  and  the  environment 
of  opinion  in  which  they  live,  might  advantageously 
be  in  some  degree  altered  so  as  to  leave  them  with 


172          The  Nature  of  Woman 

fuller  resources  to  meet  the  demands  and  face  the 
privations  of  unmarried  life.  But  an  excess  in  this 
direction  is  most  of  all  things  to  be  deprecated  ; 
and  there  is  undoubtedly  a  growing  body  of  opinion 
which  favours  this  excess.  It  is  constantly  asserted, 
or  implied,  that  all  women  ought  to  be  educated  as 
if  they  were  men  and  were  going  to  live  as  men,  nay, 
more,  that  the  life  of  man  is  necessary  to  their  com- 
plete education  ;  you  must,  it  is  said,  shut  no  avenue 
of  knowledge  to  women,  and  debar  them  from  no 
occupation  through  any  false  fear  of  soiling  their 
purity  or  hardening  their  nature.  Now  if  the  woman 
is  to  be  educated  to  fight  the  battle  of  life  in  the 
same  ranks  and  under  the  same  discipline  as  the  man, 
she  must  no  doubt  learn  early  to  fit  herself  for  the 
roughnesses  of  the  campaign  ;  but  if  to  the  normal 
condition  of  a  woman's  life  the  freshest  bloom  of 
delicacy,  the  grace  and  depth  of  unvulgarised 
emotions,  and  a  nature  unhardened  by  the  keen 
pursuit  of  selfish  interests,  are  not  only  the  highest 
crown,  but  the  most  necessary  conditions  of  her 
highest  function  and  influence,  is  it  wise  to  endanger 
these  at  the  outset  ?  Two  replies  are  made.  It  is 
said,  woman  is  an  earthly  creature  ;  and  it  is  idle  to 
strive  after  super-mundane  purity.  Most  true,  only 
let  us  have  a  quid  pro  quo.  If  women  are  to  be  ex- 
posed to  a  larger  extent  than  hitherto  to  the  ruder 
and  coarser  influences  of  life,  let  us  take  what  care 
we  can  that  they  lose  no  more  than  is  necessary,  and 
nothing  without  an  adequate  countervailing  benefit. 
Again  it  is  said,  if  woman  be  that  pure  and  lofty 
being  you  describe  her  and  would  fain  have  her  re- 
main, raised  by  a  holier  and  finer  nature  above  the 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    173 

man,  she  may  be  fearlessly  exposed  to  the  same  in- 
fluences as  he  is,  and  will  pass  unsullied  through 
them.  But  this  is  by  no  means  so  certain  as  it  is 
assumed  to  be.  Doubtless  the  innate  delicacy  and 
modesty  of  women  is  greater  than  that  of  men, — 
from  this  axiom  we  all  start ;  but  experience  seems 
to  prove  that  their  finer  bloom  is  more  easily  rubbed 
off.  The  stronger  nature  of  man  is  better  fitted  for 
the  ruder  trials  it  has  to  undergo  ;  contamination 
neither  stains  it  so  deeply  nor  leaves  so  permanent  a 
mark.  He  is,  as  we  have  said,  less  dependent  in  his 
nature  than  woman,  and  daily  we  see  men  retrieving 
themselves  from  impressions  and  habits  which  must 
permanently  have  degraded  a  woman.  Of  course 
the  man  suffers  loss ;  he  can  never  be  what  he  might 
have  been  had  he  been  true  to  himself  and  placed 
under  happier  conditions ;  but  undoubtedly  he  has 
more  power  of  casting  his  slough  than  the  woman 
has  ;  and  things  which  rub  off  his  rough  outside,  sink 
into  and  decay  the  softer  nature  of  a  woman. 

"  Let  us  not  be  misunderstood.  We  are  not 
speaking  of  the  contact  of  a  higher  nature  with  ex- 
traneous misery  or  debasement.  It  is  of  the  evils  of 
a  competitive  struggle  we  speak,  with  its  temptations 
to  selfishness,  to  dishonesty,  to  untruthf  ulness,  its  not 
easy  reconcilement  with  modesty  and  self-forgetful- 
ness  ;  it  is  of  the  dangers  which  must  necessarily,  and 
undoubtedly  do,  hang  about  many  of  the  avenues  of 
knowledge.  Ought  women  rashly  to  expose  them- 
selves to  these  ?  And  there  is  danger  that  they 
venture  rashly  ;  extremes  have  a  charm  for  them. 
There  are  signs  enough  of  this  in  what  advanced 
women  write  on  education.  They  don't  like  the 


174         The  Nature  of  Woman 

commonplace  difficulties  of  the  beginning,  the 
patient  training  of  intellect,  which  is  what  they 
most  want.  They  prefer  something  easy  and  outre. 
Miss  Parkes  does  so.  We  have  cited  her  before  as  the 
advocate  of  teaching  all  things ;  we  may  cite  her 
again  to  show  that  she  really  means  to  exclude  all 
discrimination.  She  does,  indeed,  give  Euclid  a 
condescending,  half-contemptuous  nod  of  approba- 
tion in  passing.  It  is  not,  however,  mathematics 
that  she  urges  as  a  discipline  for  the  tender  and  dis- 
cursive intellect  of  young  girls,  nor  the  exact  study 
of  one  of  the  completer  languages,  nor  the  methodic 
pursuit  of  some  branch  of  natural  science  (indeed, 
these  things  do  seem  poor  beside  all  knowledge)  ;  but 
she  thinks  that  the  subject  of  the  relation  of  the 
sexes,  which  we  are  told  includes  in  it  '  the  passional 
influences  of  women,'  should  certainly  engage  the 
attention  of  young  women,  and  that  it  ought  to  be 
pursued  with  entire  thoroughness ;  that  granting 
this,  it  is  preposterous  to  debar  girls  from  '  Chaucer 
and  Dryden,  Ben  Jonson  and  Fielding,'  and  they 
must  be  well  grounded  in  '  George  Sand.'  We  can- 
not help  saying  this  is  not  only  nonsense,  but  non- 
sense of  a  very  unpleasant  sort.  It  is  difficult  to  say 
why  Dryden  and  Jonson  are  named,  except  from  a 
sort  of  wanton  love  of  pushing  the  theory  beyond  all 
the  limits  assigned  by  decency  and  common  sense. 
There  is  nothing  in  either  of  these  authors  that  bears 
on  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  except  perhaps  some  of 
the  most  unmitigatedly  indecent  parts  of  their  plays; 
and  to  read  these  parts  for  the  sake  of  the  knowledge 
to  be  derived  from  them,  would  be  as  if  a  well- 
dressed  woman  should  insist  on  wading  up  a  sewer  to 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    175 

secure  a  pin.  Knowledge  may  be  bought  too  dear, 
and  we  daily  and  most  justly  sacrifice  the  acquisition 
of  it  to  higher  considerations.  Still  it  may  be  true 
that  no  research  should  be  denied  to  a  woman  who  is 
genuinely  drawn  towards  it,  self-responsible  alone, 
and  of  mature  mind.  It  may  be  true  that  the  pure 
thirst  for  knowledge  may  carry  her  safe  through  even 
such  a  path  ;  but  the  idea  of  teaching  young  girls  to 
study  the  sexual  relations  with  these  works  for  text- 
books is  excusable  only  under  the  assumption  that 
the  lady  is  a  theorist  who  has  not  realised  the  working 
of  her  vague  ideas.  Practically  her  recommendation 
is  not  a  very  dangerous  one.  Few  people  would  send 
their  daughters  to  attend  the  lectures  of  the  Pro- 
fessor of  the  Passional  Influences  who  proposes  to 
read  George  Sand  with  his  pupils ;  intuition  and  ex- 
perience have  alike  made  plain  the  ruinous  effect,  to 
boys  and  girls  alike,  of  stimulating  feelings  through 
the  imagination  before  they  have  met  a  legitimate 
natural  development  and  practical  object. 

"  It  is  said  that  the  habitual  intervention  of 
women  in  business  would  soften  its  asperities  and 
raise  its  morality.  We  don't  the  least  believe  this. 
A  -priori,  we  should  say  that  the  disposition  of  women 
to  give  too  high  a  place  to  the  personal  interests  with 
which  matters  are  interwoven,  and  to  attach  an 
exaggerated  importance  to  the  aspects  of  things  im- 
mediately before  them,  would  make  them  less  scru- 
pulous in  pushing  advantages,  and  less  constantly 
open  to  the  claims  of  justice  and  the  interests  of 
long-sighted  prudence.  And  does  not  experience 
prove  the  same  thing  ?  Do  not  business  women 
as  a  rule  exaggerate  the  defects  of  business  men  ? 


176          The  Nature  of  Woman 

Are  not  fishwomen  worse  than  fishmen, — female 
lodging-house  keepers  worse  than  male  ones  ? 
Widows  are  bad  ;  but  if  you  would  not  be  stripped 
alive,  avoid  a  female  orphan.  Is  not  what  is  called  a 
clever  woman  of  business  the  most  difficult  and  most 
disagreeable  person  to  deal  with  in  the  whole  world? 
Is  not  the  whole  position  of  antagonistic  relations 
and  contest  for  advantage  with  the  other  sex  the 
most  perilous  to  delicacy  and  simple-mindedness 
into  which  a  woman  can  enter  ?  The  scolding  of 
the  house  is  bad,  but  that  of  the  market  is  worse  ;  the 
coquetry  of  the  ball-room  is  more  fashionable  than 
desirable,  but  what  shall  we  say  of  the  coquetry  of  a 
bargain  and  sale  ? — Fanny  using  her  fine  eyes  to  sell 
sea-island  cotton  to  advantage,  or  Georgy  offering 
you  a  very  white  hand  to  seal  terms  which,  but  for 
the  sake  of  pressing  it,  you  would  never  dream  of 
accepting  !  A  well-principled  upholder  of  the  rights 
of  woman  says  of  course,  Fie  !  such  things  are  im- 
possible. We  grieve  to  say  they  are  not  ;  and  what  is 
proposed  is  not  only  that  elderly  creatures  with 
peaked  noses  and  coal-scuttle  bonnets  should  join  in 
the  struggle,  but  that  the  world  of  industry  should 
be  equally  open  to,  and  frequented  by,  all  women  as 
it  is  by  all  men,  with  one  single  exception,  made  by 
the  less  thorough-going  advocates  of  the  change, — 
the  case  of  mothers  with  large  families  of  small 
children  and  no  nursemaids. 

"  We  are  strongly  of  opinion,  then,  that  there  are 
many  phases  of  the  life  of  industry  totally  unfitted 
for  women  to  enter  on  ;  and  that,  so  far  from  its 
being  to  be  desired  that  she  should  mingle  in  and 
understand  by  experience  the  difficulties  with 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    177 

which  many  men  have  to  contend,  it  is  to  be  wished 
that  her  atmosphere  should  be  as  serene  and  her 
growth  as  unwarped  as  the  conditions  of  humanity 
will  allow.  On  the  other  hand,  we  yet  more  strongly 
deprecate  anything  in  the  nature  of  a  cloisteral  se- 
clusion or  an  enforced  idleness.  We  believe  practical 
life,  employment  in  affairs  of  some  kind  or  other,  to 
be  essential  to  the  healthy  condition  and  just  de- 
velopment of  every  individual,  male  or  female  ;  and 
we  do  believe  that  the  number  of  unmarried  women 
in  modern  society  requires  a  wider  field  of  industry 
than  the  middle  classes  at  least  have  hitherto  had 
opened  to  them.  To  discuss  what  this  field  is  to  be, 
would  be  a  long  and  not  very  profitable  task.  It  is  a 
question  which  will  decide  itself.  The  advantages 
seem  to  point  in  the  direction  of  some  of  the  many 
branches  of  manufacturing  occupation,  especially 
those  which  can  be  carried  on  at  home,  and  with  the 
least  exposure  and  publicity.  For  we  do  assert,  and 
most  strongly,  that  there  is  a  multitude  of  avocations 
which,  in  the  present  condition  of  the  world,  are 
totally  unfitted  for  woman  ;  and  that  it  will  require 
a  nice  discrimination  and  cautious  judgment  to 
select  those  in  which  she  is  most  competent  to 
succeed,  and  which  are  most  in  consonance  with  her 
nature  as  it  is,  not  as  it  is  presumed  it  may  become, 
and  with  what,  notwithstanding  Amazonian  sneers, 
we  still  with  Mr.  Tennyson  believe  to  subsist, — her 
'  distinctive  womanhood.' 

'  They  are  happiest,  and  will  ever  remain  so,  who 
can  find  a  place  for  their  activity  in  administering,  or 
helping  to  administer,  a  household  ;  and  we  do  not 
hesitate  to  say,  in  spite  of  the  most  enlightened 


178         The  Nature  of  Woman 

remonstrance,  not  only  that  this  occupation  is  more 
healthy  and  natural  to  a  woman,  but  that  it  is  in 
reality  a  broader  field,  calls  forth  more  faculties,  and 
exercises  and  disciplines  them  more  perfectly,  than 
ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  of  the  industrial 
avocations  out  of  doors.  It  is  only  in  the  higher 
branches  of  superintendence  and  conduct  of  business 
that  anything  like  it  can  be  obtained.  Women  are  in 
a  position  to  suffer  much  less  than  men  by  the  ex- 
cessive division  of  labour  and  the  narrowing  influence 
it  tends  to  exert.  The  greater  part  of  them  have  a 
sphere  in  their  own  homes  which  calls  for  more 
varied  faculties  and  higher  powers  than  the  unvaried 
task  of  the  factory  or  the  workshop.  Every  woman 
must  govern  more  or  less  in  her  own  house,  or  ought 
to  do  so  ;  and  to  govern  is  not  an  easy  thing,  nor  are 
servants  and  children  the  easiest  things  to  govern. 
But  the  nature  of  women  specially  adapts  them  to 
govern  ;  not,  indeed,  by  a  wise  and  far-sighted  appli- 
cation of  general  ideas,  but  by  choice  of  able 
ministers  or  immediate  contact  with  the  persons 
governed.  Many  women,  even  those  whose  minds 
are  entirely  uncultivated,  show  a  power  and  a 
breadth  of  capacity  in  administering  their  house- 
holds, and  controlling  into  harmony  difficult  tempers 
and  unruly  wills,  which  few  men  could  rival. 

"  Our  observations  have  been  directed  not  to  any 
attempt  to  discuss  the  particular  claims  made  for 
extension  of  the  sphere  of  women's  action  ;  but  to 
draw  attention  to  the  false  ideas  on  which  such 
claims  are  based  by  what  may  be  called  the  more 
neuter  members  of  the  sex  and  their  adherents.  Two 
of  these  ideas  may  be  selected  as  most  commonly  put 


Some  Landmarks  in  the  Subject    179 

forward,  most  evil  in  their  results,  and  most  in- 
trinsically untrue.  These  are,  the  idea  that  women 
are  to  be  considered  as  forming  a  distinct  class  in 
society,  which  ought  to  possess  a  distinctive  class 
action  and  a  peculiar  class  position  ;  and  the  idea  that 
if  they  are  not  men,  it  is  only  by  some  great  injustice 
which  demands  instant  remedy,  and  that  the  object 
of  their  highest  ambition  should  be  a  successful 
rivalry  in  the  masculine  career." 

I  have  substituted  intuition  for  instinct  where  it  would  have  been 
so  intended,  otherwise  this  essay  is  Roscoe's  untouched  thought. 
I  know  of  no  earlier  work  that  can  seriously  compare  with  this. 
Laura  Hansson's  was  almost  certainly  developed  independently 
thirty  years  later,  and  my  own  conclusions  were  reached  by  another 
path,  that  of  science,  and  had  already  begun  to  appear  in  print 
before  Roscoe's  paper  was  placed  in  my  hands,  Mrs.  Hansson'r 
work  became  known  to  me  later  still, — let  the  reader  remembes 
this  when  he  compares  our  thoughts  and  notes  their  similarity.  It 
is  truth,  not  error,  that  leads  different  minds  to  so  close  and  de- 
tailed a  resemblance.  I  know  that  this  book  will  pain  many  men 
and  women  friends  of  mine,  friends  whom  I  sincerely  respect,  and 
many  more  men  and  women  whom  I  have  never  seen  and  may 
never  know  ;  will  these  believe  that  I  would  have  wished  to  do 
otherwise,  and  it  is  only  my  belief  in  truth  that  compels  me  to 
express  my  thought,  because  I  know  one  certain  reality  :  that 
truth  pains  to  heal  ? 


References 

These  are  extremely  numerous  and  of  very  uneven  quality ;  a 
few  of  the  more  important  are  given  below  for  the  reader's  further 
study  of  the  subject  should  this  be  thought  desirable. 

I.   The  Social  Status  and  Characteristics  of  Woman  in  Social 
Life. 

(1)  Professor  E.  Westermarck. 

"  On  the  Position  of  Woman  in  Early  Civilization/' 
Sociological   Papers,    1904,    Macmillan   &   Co.,  and 
all  the  writer's   works  on  Marriage  and  kindred 
subjects. 

(2)  Thomas  Wright. 

"Domestic  Manners  and  Sentiments."      1862. 
"Womankind  in  all  Ages  of  Western  Europe."     1869. 
No  studies  of  an  authoritative  kind  on  woman  from  about  1800 
onward  of  the  "  modern  "  woman  exist  ;  but 

(3)  Laura  Hansson's    "  Modern   Women "  is   much  the   best 
modern  study. 

Note. — The  best  type  of  woman,  married  or  single,  is  for  various 
reasons  nearly  always  unrecorded  ;  if  this  be  not  borne  in  mind  the 
above  studies  will  be  perhaps  a  little  depressing.  Dante  and  later 
poets  and  painters  express  a  real  truth  in  their  poetical  ideals  of 
womanhood  ;  but  it  is  an  ideal  to  which  only  the  few  women,  and 
for  a  corresponding  manly  ideal  only  the  few  men,  attain  ;  it  is  the 
ideal  none  the  less. 

II.   Public  Political  Agitation. 

Earlier  studies  of  Egyptian  and  Greek  life  should  certainly  be 
made,  but  Mary  AstelPs  works  particularly  : 

(i)  "An  Essay  in  Defence  of  the  Female  Sex  "  (1696)  marks 
the  breaking  away  from  old  traditional  views  about  woman's  life. 

180 


References  181 

Note. — Woman  as  a  female  counterpart  of  man,  inferior  to  man 
because  of  her  femininity. 

(2)  Mary   Wollstonecraft,    "Vindication    of     the     Rights    of 
Woman."     1792. 

(3)  John  Stuart  Mill,  "The  Subjection  of  Women."      1869. 

(4)  Thomas  Huxley,  "  Emancipation— Black  and  White. "  "  The 
Reader,"  May  2oth,  1865.     Published  afterwards  in  volume  form, 
"  Lay  Sermons,  Addresses  and  Reviews."     1891. 

(4)  was  published  earlier  than  (3),  but  it  is  nevertheless  a  later 
thought ;  no  modern  work  has  advanced  beyond  these  four  writers' 
positions,  though  much  recent  propagandist  literature  has  been 
produced.  It  is  difficult  to  do  justice  to  this  aspect  of  the  question, 
as  in  this  movement  there  are  three  elements  of  power,  none 
wholly  dominant,  which  aim  respectively  for  licence  rather  than 
freedom  ;  for  industrial  and  political  opportunity  on  manly  lines, 
in  spite  of  disclaimers  to  the  contrary ;  for  manly  educational 
teaching  ;  and  under  this  third  heading  the  names  of  women  such  as 
Miss  Beale,  Miss  Buss,  Mrs.  Fawcett,  etc.,  and  under  the  second 
head  women  such  as  Miss  Nightingale  and  Mrs.  Garrett  Anderson 
ought  to  be  mentioned. 

III.  The  Real  Womaifs  Movement. 

Representing  a  change  in  the  use  of  two  words  female  and 
woman.  Burton  (1793),  Hannah  More  (i  799),  and  even  Elizabeth 
Hamilton  and  Maria  Edgeworth,  use  the  word  female  because  they 
seem  to  think  that  a  woman  is  only  a  female  man,  and  of  course 
the  word  female  was  commonly  used  before  this  in  this  light.  Very 
shortly  after  this  date  "  woman  "  took  the  place  of  female,  and  the 
change  was  almost  certainly  due  to  a  belief,  in  woman  and  in  man, 
that  a  woman's  mind  needed  the  word  woman  to  express  it  and 
separate  it  off  from  animal  life.  Femininism  is  a  bad  word  express^ 
ing  the  same  thought,  but  femininism  should  mean,  as  it  does  mean 
in  medical  science,  what  is  common  to  all  female  life.  The  gradual 
growth  of  womanly  aims  as  distinctive  of  woman  and  complementary 
to  those  of  man  has,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  received  the  attention  of 
no  competent  writer.  Johnson  in  his  dictionary  defines  woman 
"  as  the  female  of  the  human  race,"  and  though  modern  dictionary 
authorities  still  follow  him  in  this,  the  definition  is  no  longer  either 
scientifically  or  popularly  sufficient.  It  is  time  that  these  subtler 
enlargements  of  woman's  ideals  were  recognised  and  understood. 


1 82          The  Nature  of  Woman 

IV.  Advances  in  Knowledge. 

(1)  Schopenhauer  wrote  during  the  early  part  of  last  century 
many  essays  on  woman,  his  point   of  view  always  being  that  of 
woman  as  the  female,  and  therefore  the  inferior  counterpart,  of  man. 
His  writings  are  not  healthy,  are  prejudiced,  and  express  a  low  view 
of  woman,  but  to  the  student  his  essays  on  "  Woman  "  and  "The 
Metaphysics  of  Love  "  should  be  read,  because  some  partial  truths 
are  clearly  stated. 

(2)  Sex  and  Disease  Susceptibility.      Bodily  differences    have 
been  studied  by  writers  such  as  W.  R.  Williams  and  J.  R.  Andrew, 
and  are  useful  as  demonstrating  the  fact  that  women  and  men  are 
different  in  their  whole  constitutions.     Abnormalities  of  the  mind 
and  their  manifestations   are  not  healthy  reading   for  the  general 
public,  and  are  best  left  to  specialists,  legal  and  biological. 

(3)  References    to    Laycock,   Darwin,   Roscoe  are    given  else- 
where.     Geddes   and   Thomson's  work    on    "The   Evolution  of 
Sex "  supplements  in  many  ways  Laycock's  and  Darwin's  work, 
but  the  emphasis  is  too  much  on  bodily  differences,  the  mental  being 
insufficiently  treated. 

V.  Achievements  of  Woman. 

(1)  Domestic.      The  influence  of  mother,  wife  and  sister  in  the 
home.       Of  the   mother   in   relation   to  hereditary  and  personal 
influence  over  sons  and  daughters  as  compared  with  the  father ;  of 
the  wife's  influence  over  the  husband  and  vice  versa,  and  of  sisters' 
and  brothers'  mutual  but  distinctive  effects  upon  each  other's  lives. 
Friendships  within  the  home  circle  should  not  be  omitted.      From 
individual  studies  thus  made  the  cumulative  effect  of  such  forces  on 
the  race  can  be  investigated.     No  work  of  this  nature  exists. 

(2)  The  massed  social  influence  of  woman,  in  public  and  private 
life,  as  determining  and  guiding  fashions,  customs,  etc.,  compared 
with  the  massed  social  influence  of  man,  on  society  in  its  different 
stages  of  culture.     No  work  of  this  nature  known  to  me  exists 
except  Comte's  study,  which  is  quite  inadequate,  and  a  little  essay 
of  Buckle's,  "  The  Influence  of  Woman."     Mrs.   Bosanquet  and 
Mrs.   Frederic    Harrison    have  both   published   interesting    works 
bearing  indirectly  on  (i)  and  (2). 

(3)  Genius  and  talent  in  woman  and  its  cumulative  effect  on  the 
race. 


References  183 

1.  "The  Cyclopaedia  of  Female  Biography."     English  edition. 
1869. 

2.  "  Women  Poets,"  edited  by  Mrs.  William  Sharp. 

3.  Hansson.      "  Modern  Women." 

4.  "Women   Painters    of  the    World,"    edited   by  W.    Shaw 
Sparrow.     There  are  many  other  writers,  but  these  give  a  fair  idea 
of  this  third  division  in  the  study  of  woman's  achievement. 

(i)  (2)  (3)  probable  order  of  importance  of  woman's  influence. 

VI.  Maladjustments. 

Divorce  and  marriage  difficulties  have  had  almost  endless  books 
written  about  them,  novelists  claiming  to  write  with  a  purpose,  but 
omitting  to  state  what  their  scientific  or  practical  life  experiences 
have  been  to  justify  them  for  the  task,  and  often  creating  purely 
fictitious  examples  of  misery  not  found  in  real  life  ;  legal  writers, 
often  very  able  men,  and  others.  These  and  other  difficulties  ought 
to  wait  for  their  solution  until  more  careful  studies  of  the  minds  of 
men  and  women  have  been  made,  and  until  we  know  what  kind  of 
school  training,  what  kind  of  wage-earning  life  before  marriage,  and 
what  kind  of  larger  home  life  is  most  suitable  to  woman's  needs. 

VII.   Literary  Portrayals  of  Womanhood. 

Probably  the  greatest  of  these,  omitting  Dante,  Shakespeare,  and 
some  other  classical  references,  are — 

Jane  Austen,  for  the  detail  aspect  of  a  woman's  nature. 

Charlotte  Bronte,  for  the  emotional  outlook  of  a  woman's  life. 

And  in  spite  of  recent  and  to  some  extent  just  criticism — 

Mrs.  Gaskell  and  Louisa  M.  Alcott,  for  domestic  life. 

I  know  of  no  modern  books  that  can  seriously  compare  with 
these  writers  in  expressing  woman's  individuality  as  woman. 

As  secondary  to  these  one  naturally  thinks  of  George  Meredith 
for  very  clever  surface  views  of  women  almost  of  one  type  ;  and  of 
George  Gissing's  deeper,  if  less  brilliant,  and  rather  sad  descriptions 
of  many  women  very  different  and  yet  all  of  them  womanly  ;  while 
for  eccentric  portraiture  Charles  Dickens  is  sometimes  extraordinarily 
happy  in  his  delineation. 

These  references  are  only  intended  to  guide  the  reader  who 
wishes  a  larger  study  of  the  subject,  and  not,  of  course,  as  being 
representative  of  the  whole  inquiry.  I  have  omitted  any  references 


184          The  Nature  of  Woman 

to  an  eighth  division  of  the  subject,  the  practical  side  of  a  woman's 
life,  because  the  subject  is  so  large  that  to  do  justice  to  it  would  fill 
many  pages,  merely  with  mentioning  authorities.  A  good  natural 
history  book  will  illustrate  the  rise  in  the  importance  of  the  function 
of  motherhood  up  to  its  supreme  height  in  human  life  ;  a  very  useful 
little  work  by  Emilia  V.  Kaulhack  de  Voss  on  "  The  Preservation 
of  Infant  Life  "  may  be  mentioned.  The  whole  fields  of  mother- 
craft,  house-craft,  or  the  old-fashioned  word  housekeeping,  and 
home-craft  need  reconsideration  from  the  modern  point  of  view,  but 
the  one  fault  which  must  be  avoided  at  all  costs  is  that  one  which 
in  its  desire  to  run  life  into  business  channels  tends,  to  its  own  loss, 
to  shut  out  at  last  life  itself. 

Had  this  been  a  larger  volume,  I  should  have  referred  to  Aris- 
totle, Aristophanes  and  Plato  ;  to  the  inspirational  influence  of 
Joan  of  Arc,  to  an  example  such  as  Hypatia  and  other  similar 
instances  ;  but  Joan  of  Arc  originated  no  new  military  idea  nor 
Hypatia  a  new  system  of  philosophy  ;  for  this  reason  they  do  not 
affect  the  general  thought  of  the  volume  and  are  more  apparent 
than  real  exceptions  to  woman's  life. 


Authors'  Index 


Astell,    Mary     (1696),     11-13. 

First  rationalistic  woman  writer 

on  women. 
Comfe,  Auguste  (1830-42),   n. 

Woman's  social  and    domestic 

position,  pioneer  study. 
Dante  (about   1300),   110,   140. 

Psychology  of  woman,  pioneer 

poetic  study. 
Darwin,    Charles    (1871),     147. 

The  first  scientific  authority  on 

sex  characters. 
Gissingy    George    (1880-1906), 

40-1. 
Hansson,    Laura    (about     1885). 

First   woman    psychologist  of 

psychology  of  woman,    31-4, 

34-6- 

1 Hunter,  John  (born  1728,  died 
1793),  H^-  Secondary  sex 
characters. 

Huxley,  Thomas  (1865),  17. 

Laycock,  Thomas  (1840),  146-7. 
Law  of  Affectability  and  stu- 
dent of  sex  characteristics. 

Mill,  J.  S.  (1869),  14-16,  23, 
115-18,  140.  Political  Eman- 
cipationist. 

Mulcaster,  Richard  (1581-2),  12. 
Early  women's  educationist. 

Roscoe,Vf.  C.  (1858),  1 6,  22- 
31,  34-6,  148-79.  Pioneer 


scientific  study  of  psychology 
of  woman. 

Rumford,  Count  [Thompson,  B.] 
(second  half  of  eighteenth  cen- 
tury), 103  ;  and  Liebig  (1840- 
4),  17.  Founders  of  modern 
cookery  and  beginnings  of 
domestic  science. 

Ruskin,  John  (1865,  "Sesame 
and  Lilies"),  28,  44. 

Schopenhauer^  20.  Pioneer  human 
feminist  psychologist  of  first 
half  of  last  century. 

Schreiner,  Olive,  39-40. 

Spencer,  Herbert  (second  half  of 
nineteenth  century),  20.  Bio- 
logical interpretation  of  love  and 
sociological  interpretation  of 
marriage. 

Tennyson,  Sir  Alfred  (1847). 
"  The  Princess,"  a  poetic  land- 
mark, quotation  from  p.  9  re- 
ferred to  by  W.  C.  Roscoe, 
l858,laterbyRomanes;  see  also 
Andrew  Lang's  "  Tennyson." 

Westermarck  (i894~date),  20,  54. 
Authority  on  marriage  and  on 
early  status  of  woman. 

Wolhtonecraft,  Mary  (1792),  14- 
16.  First  woman  exponent  of 
the  ethical  view  of  emancipa- 
tion of  woman. 


1  Hunter's  reference  above  refers  to  birth  and  death  dates,  not  to  his  works. 
I85 


1 86 


The  Nature  of  Woman 


Chronological  Index 

About  1300.     Dante. 

1581-2.     Mulcaster. 

1696.     Astell. 

1728-93.     Hunter. 

About  1750.     Rumford,  Count. 

1792.     Wollstonecraft. 

1830-42.     Comte. 

Before  1850.    Schopenhauer. 

1840.     Laycock. 

1840-4.      Liebig. 

1847.     Tennyson. 

Subject  Index 


1858.     Roscoe. 
After  1860.     Spencer. 
1865.     Huxley. 
1865.     Ruskin. 
1869.     Mill. 
1871.     Darwin. 
1880-1906.     Gissing. 
1883.     Schreiner. 
About  1885.     Hansson. 

£.     Westermarck. 


Anti-woman  and  anti-home  feelings, 

50-1,  60-1. 

Artistic  and  hygienic  views,  62-3. 
Co-education,  56,  85,  132. 
Comparisons,  odious  or  not,  68- 

70. 
Economic    Independence,    57-60, 

117-23. 

Education,  132-5. 
"Emancipationist"  theories,    51- 

61. 

Historical  errors,  47-51. 
Historical  facts,  97-8. 
Homeliness,  72,  118,  122-8. 
Human  associations,  66-8. 
Hygiene  of  infancy,  113-14. 
Individuality,  loss  of,  72-4. 
Love,  psychology  of,  25-6,  169- 

70. 

Man,  ascendancy  of,  100-4,  149. 
Man's  Movements,  42-6. 
Matriarchy,  52-4. 
Motherhood,     meaning     of,     98- 

103. 


National,  British,  11-18. 

United  States,  chapter  III. 
German,  19-22. 
"  Neuter  "  states  of  sex,  54-5. 
"  Oversexed"  states  of  sex,  54-5. 
Rationalism,  dominance    of,    74- 

80,  83-6. 

Religious  life,  65,  72. 
Sex,  animal  and  human  values,  6-1 1. 
Public  recognition  of,  9-11. 
Sex  status,  1 1. 
Sex  question,  9—1 1-. 
Specialisation  of,  9-11. 
Single  woman,  41,  136. 
Woman's  capacity,  16-17,  22-41, 

100-4,  I3I~2»  H9* 
Woman's  dissatisfaction,  18,  38-9, 

46,  61,  68. 
Woman  s  ideals,  10-17,  123,  136, 

141-5. 

Women,  types  of,  Amazonian,  10  ; 
asexual  (neutral),  26,  113; 
feminine,  1 1  ;  madonnas,  1 1  ; 
womanly,  n,  26,  33-4,  168. 


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